Sure! Let’s delve into the exciting world of **hospital technology** and how it’s changing the landscape in this sector for the future.
## Hospital Technology: Innovation and Impact
1. **Smart Hospitals**:
– **Definition**: Smart hospitals implement state-of-the-art technologies in both the design and its operations to improve patient experience, outcomes, and cost efficiency.
– **Technologies**: The concept of smart hospitals brings forward AI, robots, improved drug trials, and personalized medicine, 3D printing, and AR technologies. Fast-developing spheres of genomics and telemedicine have also sprung up over the past years.
– **Benefits**
– **Patient Experience**: Smart hospitals are based on a patient’s comfort and his convenience.
– **Outcomes**: More precision and less occurrence of errors.
– **Cost Savings**: This implementation of digital technology can save more than 10% of yearly annual national healthcare expenditure for most OECD countries¹.
– **Investment Opportunity**: After being only $1B in 2011, the investment figure from VCs in digital health solutions has reached over $8B in 2018¹.
2. **Key Technologies**:
– **Central Scheduling**: It helps in managing appointments and resources.
– **Speech-Assisted Automated Attendant Systems**: Helps in enhancing communication.
– **Master Patient Index**: It helps in making patient identification accurate.
– **Self-Register Kiosks**: Offers ease in check-in.
– **Wireless Connectivity**: During the communication.
– **Bedside Computer Terminals**: For the better care of the patients.
– **Bedside Medication Verification**: For the patients’ safety enhancement.
– **Online Bill Pay**: Comfortable in-wise financial transactions³.
3. **Healthcare Technology in General**:
– **Definition**: Any IT tools or software designed for improved productivity, insights, or aiming to raise the standards of health quality.
– **Examples**: Medical devices, IT systems, algorithms, AI, cloud, and blockchain².
In a nutshell, technology in hospitals is reshaping the delivery of health care, making it more efficient, patient-centered, and cost-effective. Whether it is designing new smart hospitals or reconfiguring old ones, in the process, it has to be technology-wave inclusive for better healthcare outcomes. ????????
More on this, you can check out resources such as [McKinsey’s article on smart hospitals](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/finding-the-future-of-care-provision-the-role-of-smart-hospitals)¹. Do feel free to ask if there are any other questions! ????
Source: Conversation with Copilot, 8/26/2024
(1) Finding the future of care provision: The role of smart hospitals. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/finding-the-future-of-care-provision-the-role-of-sm.