The use of mobile devices and vast amounts of data is prevalent within nearly every industry these days, as organizations work to make the most of the technology available to them. While handheld hardware endpoints and rising levels of client information are no doubt beneficial for firms across different sectors, practices connected with these elements can also create struggles when it comes to network bandwidth in healthcare.
Within the healthcare industry, doctors, nurses and other practitioners are increasingly turning to mobile devices and big data to improve patient care. These processes have had impacts on institutions’ network bandwidth as well.
More mobile devices in hospitals, doctors’ offices
The mobile device trend, while first appearing in the consumer and business sectors, has since expanded into healthcare as well. In fact, a recent survey shows that smartphones, tablets and other mobile endpoints are so prevalent that the majority of clinicians use them.
According to Mobi Health News, a recent HIMSS survey found that 69 percent of healthcare providers leverage mobile devices as a means to view patient information. An additional 36 percent use handheld hardware endpoints to gather this information from patients at their bedsides. However, the use of mobile devices in healthcare doesn’t stop there.
The study also found that using smartphones and tablets to look up other health information and educate staff members was also popular among healthcare workers. Overall, nearly 65 percent use their mobile devices for looking up non-patient health data, and more than 48 percent leverage these endpoints for training purposes.
Many healthcare institutions are even providing these devices for their staff members. The study stated that 69 percent of clinicians received smartphones from their employers and 43 percent were provided with tablets. Additionally, 67 percent of survey respondents said their organization gave them pagers, and 56 percent were given cell phones.
Explosion of data
Mobile endpoints aren’t the only technological advancement seen in today’s healthcare organizations. A Ponemon Institute study found that in 2012, 30 percent of all the data existing in the world belonged to the healthcare industry, according to Building Better Healthcare. As the use of mobile devices and big data analytics has only increased since then, its a safe bet that this figure has risen in the last two years.
Due to the rising collection and use of data in the healthcare industry, just under half of Ponemon Institute survey respondents said they were looking to expand their storage systems by one terabyte or more within the year.
“This means healthcare organizations are increasingly reliant on digital storage and technology that ensures constant connectivity, accessibility of the information and their preparedness for a disaster,” Building Better Healthcare contributor Jim Gerrity wrote.
The bottom line: Boosted network bandwidth needs
As big data and mobile devices continue to permeate the healthcare industry, one thing becomes abundantly clear: Institutions are now utilizing more network bandwidth than ever for these processes. However, just as with any network, the amount of broadband resources in place isn’t unlimited. If too many devices connect to the network, or the storage system being used to house data grows too big, the performance of these components suffers.
For this reason, administrators must ensure that there is not only enough network bandwidth available to support current usage levels, but that resources are in place for the near future as well. Decision-makers in the healthcare industry should take an in-depth look at their network and increase bandwidth where necessary.
Institution leaders also need to be prepared for the worst, as Gerrity pointed out. A WAN network can provide a connectivity backup, ensuring that even if one connection goes down, there is another ready and waiting to handle user traffic.