Oct 14
2022
Driving Healthcare Operational Efficiency with IoT-Sensing-as-a-Service
By Guy Yehiav, president, SmartSense by Digi.
Amid widespread staffing shortages across the healthcare sector, the need for IoT-enabled digital transformation in hospitals and patient care facilities is increasingly clear. For the first time since 2004, a lack of staffing has overtaken financial volatility as the No. 1 concern among healthcare CEOs in the American College of Healthcare Executives’ annual survey.
Meanwhile, from canceled appointments to delayed surgeries, more than half of all U.S. patients report reductions in care quality due to personnel shortages. The problem is even further magnified in rural areas, with rural-based primary healthcare professionals ranking care quality as a greater concern than access to care within their communities.
With that said, healthcare providers should get proactive about leveraging digital adoption to “do more with less” and ensure quality care despite their staffing challenges. There’s no better place to start than with IoT Sensing-as-a-Service. Beyond supporting product efficacy and asset protection, the IoT SaaS framework can be a critical workforce empowerment tool that helps improve therapeutic outcomes for patients. Why? Because in addition to eliminating elongated and error-prone manual compliance procedures, it also provides digital task management capabilities with automated prescriptive insights that enable healthcare employees to streamline workflows and enhance operational efficiency.
What Exactly is IoT Sensing as a Service??
IoT SaaS is the interconnected use of remote IoT sensing and monitoring tools with AI-powered prescriptive analytics – essentially an enhanced version of traditional IoT sensing and monitoring technology that empowers healthcare facilities to collect, analyze and act on inventory performance data for compliance and patient safety. The IoT sensors are placed on medical assets, as well as inside of freezers and refrigerators where vaccines and medications are stored, and perform real-time monitoring of those assets to track and trace location and confirm compliance. Fully operable with Bluetooth, the sensors do not need to be added to the hospital’s IT infrastructure. These easy to deploy sensors can sense anything from CO2, O2 levels, humidity and temperature to current consumption and noise.
Furthermore, the sensors measure asset performance, automating the detection and prediction of maintenance issues that could lead to a future excursion. The raw data collected by each sensor flows through a continuous feedback loop via the prescriptive analytics system, which provides actionable insights to operations teams so they can take the necessary steps to ensure all assets are fully functional and in good condition.