INDIANAPOLIS — Medxcel is connecting its emergency management teams to FirstNet —  public safety’s dedicated communications platform. This tech upgrade allows Medxcel to equip eligible hospital personnel with new capabilities and reliable wireless access to critical information, so they can better serve patients at its facilities across the country.

Medxcel serves healthcare organizations nationwide with an approach that fully integrates facilities management, emergency management and compliance to ensure a safe healing environment 24/7. Adopting the FirstNet communications platform will minimize the common roadblock of communication challenges during emergency or disaster events, helping Medxcel’s emergency management teams to seamlessly implement emergency preparedness plans during a disaster.

“Providing emergency management to 161 hospitals across 21 states requires us to make sure we have the best communication systems available,” said Scott Cormier, vice president of Emergency Management, Environment of Care and Safety, Medxcel. “FirstNet gives us the reliability to help maintain communications during disasters, so our teams can coordinate patient needs while also staying in close contact with our first responder partners to prep for in-bound care.”

FirstNet is designed to improve communications across public safety entities nationwide – including emergency management teams and hospital personnel. This allows first responders, including emergency management teams, to easily and quickly communicate with one another during everyday situations, big events or emergencies. Medxcel’s emergency management teams across all 161 hospitals are now equipped with FirstNet to help create clear lines of communication between emergency management teams, eligible hospital personnel and first responders in the field. 

The decision to join FirstNet follows Medxcel’s use of the technology during Hurricane Michael in October 2018. “The communications infrastructure in Gulf County, FL was devastated,” states Cormier, “but with FirstNet technology and resources from our communication partners, we were able to keep our hospital and physician practices open to serve our communities.  There were two other hospitals in the region who made the decision to close, which meant keeping our hospitals open was vital to the recovery of our neighborhoods.”   

FirstNet is being built with AT&T in public-private partnership with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority). It’s designed with and for public safety and emergency management teams to give them the modern communications tools they need to keep themselves and those they serve safer.

“We’re honored that Medxcel chose FirstNet to further elevate their communications capabilities and help ensure they can perform at the highest levels during emergency events,” said Maria Lensing, vice president of Global Healthcare Solutions – AT&T Business. “We’re privileged to play a part in fueling transformation in healthcare through technology and provide a connectivity platform with unmatched capabilities like FirstNet.  And we applaud Medxcel for helping to lead the way.”

“FirstNet is the exclusive communications platform built with AT&T for public safety, inspired by public safety – there is no substitution for this network that they fought for,” said Edward Parkinson, Acting CEO, FirstNet Authority. “We look forward to supporting Medxcel and all of their client healthcare organizations’ emergency management communities with FirstNet, making sure it delivers what they need, when they need it.”

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As building technology evolves, security threats to buildings – including hospitals – are changing, as are the knowledge and skills needed from facility managers and employees to protect their buildings.

Facility managers must understand how the latest building security technology systems work together and stay proactive in utilizing the tools at hand to effectively address safety threats in order to maintain video surveillance systems, visitor entry control systems and other physical security infrastructure.

An additional benefit of technology, like the Internet of Things (IoT), is that safety and profitability no longer need to be mutually exclusive.

Traditionally, since the primary objective for a business is to drive profitability, protecting the safety of the people, assets and environment have often been viewed as somewhat necessary evils. Today’s IoT-enabled systems help to better identify, plan and manage operating and business risks, reducing the likelihood of unexpected production outages and downtime, and empowering facilities and plants to control the profitability of their safety applications.

Tyler Haak, business development manager at Schneider Electric, spoke with HC+O News to discuss IoT and how it will assist facility managers in the healthcare industry.

Q: How are technologies such as IoT evolving and making the facility manager’s job easier?

Haak: Sensing is being embedded into more and more devices, creating new points of access and data collection in our building systems. Concurrently, historically disparate systems are integrating in new ways with throughputs in data transmission that are much higher than previous generations of buildings. Facility managers in hospitals, outpatient clinics, assisted living centers, doctors’ offices and other healthcare facilities are able to use the insights generated from all this data to perform more specific, more proactive, and more effective tasks. With facility managers now able to leverage the IoT to focus their efforts in a healthcare setting, we are afforded better opportunities to accommodate changing patient needs and combat rising healthcare costs.

Q: What specific technologies should hospital facilities managers have on their radars?

Haak: There is a wide range of IoT-enabled technologies for healthcare facilities available today, and these are constantly evolving. One area that is having a significant impact on patient comfort is mobile patient room control applications. For example, IoT connectivity enables patients to use apps on their smart phones to create their own optimal healing environment through individual control over room temperature, lighting, windows and other more hospital-experience specific tasks like nurse calls and bed adjustments rather than relying on nurses to perform basic tasks. While enabling better comfort for patients, this also gives nurses more time to spend on clinical tasks.

Q: What are some of the key security threats to hospitals and how do these technologies help mitigate those risks?

Haak: Healthcare facilities experience both physical and cybersecurity threats, including both data theft and physical theft of hospital equipment. IoT-enabled devices can protect against equipment theft through incorporating real-time location system (RTLS) technology that provides alerts when assets or patients leave a designated area. To protect against data theft and other cyberattacks, healthcare facilities must ensure that all IoT enabled equipment uses the latest security best practices including end-to-end encryption.

Q: How can they be more pro-active in addressing safety threats to their facility?

Haak: Healthcare facility IT teams should implement IoT-based cybersecurity solutions to prevent attacks on technology that holds sensitive patient data. If the IT teams are qualified to implement efficient cybersecurity measures then they should go to a company like Scarlett Cybersecurity. As part of this, it is vital to incorporate the use of authentication and encryption to protect communications between mobile devices, controllers and workstations. In addition, system manufacturers need to provide training to the application developers to ensure that clients are complying with regulations such as HIPAA. Facility managers must incorporate threat modeling, secure code practices, extensive testing and more to ensure that their teams are following security regulations.

In addition, equipment manufacturers must provide security personnel with full documentation and instructions to ensure that they are deploying and maintaining their equipment efficiently, securely and effectively. Many facility managers are also dedicating specific staff to cybersecurity teams to help provide installation services, maintenance and ongoing support with incidents or vulnerabilities in the face of a constantly evolving threat.

Q: While budgetary restrictions have long been an issue in regard to technology and security, how are the latest ones becoming less of a financial concern?

Haak: Due to the efficiencies enabled by the latest IoT-enabled technologies, building management system (BMS) systems in many of today’s facilities are now able to significantly reduce energy costs, reduce maintenance costs and regulatory risk through predictive monitoring of equipment, streamline schedules and tasks, and create a host of other benefits from a wide range of efficiency gains. By using both cloud and on-premise technologies, BMS solutions allow facility managers to connect historically disparate systems such as lighting, HVAC, security and access control, as well as connected devices such as valves, actuators, sensors and meters into one integrated platform.

The post Q&A: Schneider Electric Discusses Healthcare Building Safety and IoT appeared first on HCO News.

The 650-square-foot, state-of-the-art operating rooms boast best-in-class technology designed to allow maximum efficiency and promote the highest levels of patient safety needed to successfully complete even the most complicated procedures. Amenities include:

• Immediate access to vital information and medical records on multiple, strategically-placed monitors to offer surgical team better visibility

• Ability to manipulate medical images digitally from a touch panel at the nurse’s station

• Advanced surgical table technology and software for integrated and seamless table adjustments during robotic surgery, versus having to manually adjust the position of the table and patient

• Full integration of equipment to the medical software surgical teams use, allowing the equipment to sync with the surgeon’s instruments

• Powerful lights suspended from the ceiling to ensure accurate visibility, even in difficult situations; and enough space for robot-assisted surgeries, allowing the surgical team to perform even the most complex of surgeries

“The demand for the high-quality surgeries offered at Morristown Medical Center put us at over 80 percent utilization for our operating rooms,” said Dr. Rolando Rolandelli, chairman of surgery for Morristown Medical Center, in a statement. “With the increase in volume of surgeries requested, we needed the additional capacity, especially for inpatient and tertiary procedures.”

In addition to the operating rooms, Morristown Medical Center added six PACU bays, ensuring patients whose surgeries are completed are quickly wheeled to a recovery bay and out of the operating room, potentially minimizing their time under anesthesia, according to the hospital’s statement.

Morristown Medical Center has also expanded the waiting areas for families and loved ones of people having surgery. The expanded area allows for greater comfort and space for people who choose to wait out their loved one’s surgery in the medical center.

The operating rooms will be used for all surgical specialties including robotic surgery, general surgery including advanced laparoscopic procedures, orthopedic, spine, neuro and oncologic surgeries.
 

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The study surveyed 54 New Jersey ASCs to collect data on the number of employees, total operational expenses and taxes, and fees paid to the state.

The study found that the ASC industry employed 9,100 people full-time, generated $73 million in tax revenue, and that for every dollar spent by facilities, more than $2 of economic value was generated. It also found that on average each ambulatory surgery center in New Jersey had total operating expenditures of $4.3 million.

“The findings of the Economic Impact Study make an inarguable case for ASCs as a key component of our local, state and federal health care delivery platforms,” said NJAASC President Larry Trenk in a statement. “As a critical component of New Jersey’s health care system, ASCs provide high-quality care while containing costs. In addition, they fuel the state’s economic engine by providing jobs and generating economic activity statewide.”

Currently, there are 364 ASCs operating in New Jersey. These facilities perform a wide range of same-day surgical procedures, including diagnostic and preventative procedures. These include an array of knee, shoulder, spine and eye surgeries such as cataract surgery, spinal fusion, hernia repair and shoulder arthroscopy. Having the range of procedures in an ASC is having a positive effect on health care costs since treatment does not necessitate an overnight hospital stay. Of the 72 million surgical procedures performed in the U.S., nearly 70 percent occur in outpatient settings and report patient satisfaction rates of more than 90 percent, according to the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ACA).

“The price of having surgery in ASC settings can be half that of doing the same procedure in a hospital,” Trenk said in a statement. “In addition, infection rates are so low at ASCs that the chance of admitting a patient for follow-up treatment is very slim. Hospital admissions are a hidden but significant cost to the economy. ASCs represent a solution to help slow the growth in spending while increasing the value of care that patients receive.”

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