Hospitals are Connecting with the Future

The scope of COVID-19 has prompted us to consider what the Hospitals of the future might look like. It has given birth to the concept of a networked healthcare system in which care is administered in a variety of places dependent on severity: intensive care units, community health hubs, and home monitoring.

Dr. Peter Ziese, MD, PhD, Philips’ Head of Medical Strategy and Innovation, Dr. Quek Sin Lat, Chief Executive Officer, Ng Teng Fong General Hospitals, and Dr. Ronnie Ptasznik, Program Director, Monash Health Imaging Monash, discussed this at the recent HIMSS APAC 2021 keynote session.

The session ‘Inside the Hospitals of the future,’ was moderated by Ivy Lai, Philips Singapore’s Country Manager. Healthcare issues can be alleviated through a digital transformation to a networked healthcare system. Future-proof according to the experts, should recognise that healthcare delivery will no longer be centred in, but rather in the community. Because will be just one of many nodes of care in the community, they will require technology infrastructure to transmit information throughout the ecosystem in order to provide meaningful patient care.

Clinicians’ time would be taken away from patients if they were expected to be data gurus. As a result, healthcare executives should be urged to reconsider current practises and expectations in order to accomplish a safe and effective digital health revolution. Hospitals must invest in technologically skilled personnel who can expand the digital capabilities, while technology such as electronic medical records (EMRs) should be designed to be straightforward and manageable for most public-sector physicians. For effective virtual care delivery outside of the Hospitals, data integration is critical.