Innovating the healthcare industry: Healthcare will benefit from the IoT Cloud Data Centre and Research Laboratory located in Penang.
Today, we function in a highly connected world and there is no vertical that is left untouched by technology. Look at the healthcare sector. Healthcare is a key area where technology can potentially innovate monitoring, diagnostics and delivery of treatment at every step.
In January this year, leading industry players including Crest, Dell, Intel, Kontron, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and several others, collaborated on the Internet of Things (IoT) Cloud Data Centre and Research Laboratory (ICDC Research Lab) located in Penang.
Healthcare is among the key industries in Malaysia that will benefit from this initiative, with one of the goals being enabling affordable, attainable, patient-centric, quality healthcare in Malaysia by utilising IoT technology.
In fact, IDC expects that the Malaysian government will focus primarily on IoT solutions for healthcare, education, and smart cities this year.
With increasing IoT proliferation, it has become exceptionally easy to remotely monitor a patient’s health with the use of network of sensors, actuators and other Internet connected medical equipment.
In fact, we will soon have smart beds that will inform other devices about a patient’s movements, or medicine bottles that will alert the patient when a daily dose has been missed.
While we talk about connected medical equipment, a benefit that it offers doctors is allowing them to monitor a patient’s vital readings and reports without having to visit him personally, thus giving the patient and his family their own space.
Usually we dread staying in the hospital but with such technological developments occurring in the healthcare sector, doctors can stay vigilant of their patient’s developments and also provide the best possible care.
Medical equipment connects to a central station by sending out data using the IP address built into its software, enabling devices to be added on to the hospital network.
This essentially means that the hospital has put the device online. By doing so, there are many benefits that can be achieved, such as cutting down the amount of time a duty nurse needs to spend with each patient, to being immediately alerted if a patient requires urgent attention (such as when any administered intravenous fluid is running low, for example).
If handled carefully, connected medical devices are extremely beneficial and safe, however, healthcare professionals, are still uncertain of the safety aspect of these devices.
Customers across sectors such as education, healthcare, energy, etc. have stated the potential risks that connected infrastructures bring, along with benefits. Having said that, there are also solutions available to keep these networks safe thereby ensuring patients’ well-being.
Let’s take an example of diabetic patients. Doctors and nurses continually need to monitor patient’s insulin levels to ensure that they are within the ‘safezone’.
Traditionally, teams in medical wards have to manually check the levels with each individual patient, however, with connected equipment, nurses can monitor all patients from afar- confident that the data they are receiving is accurate, allowing them to quickly respond to any alerts that may be raised on their system.
For networks to keep safe from any potential threat, it becomes imperative for companies to work with a trusted security vendor who understands their business completely.
There are many security vendors in the market place that offer solutions which can protect individual areas of the network, however, often, these solutions cannot communicate with others deployed across the network, potentially leaving certain areas of the network unprotected.
IT managers need to look at security from a holistic perspective. While looking at deploying solutions to protect the corporate network, it is always advisable to go for a connected security infrastructure as this is where all of the individual security solutions are able to communicate with others which are deployed.
When these solutions are allowed to communicate, the IT team can stay assured of network protection from a variety of malicious threats. Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is a fitting solution for such requirements as it majorly helps in blocking latent threats, ensuring hospital network is safe and patients are well protected too.
Imagine a scenario where hospitals were to implement connected medical devices without deploying proper network safety solutions. Nowadays, it is easy for hackers to attack hospital networks than you and I can imagine.
If these cyber-criminals get access to the network, some of the dangerous consequences that can occur are tampering with settings, silence notifications, and even switch machines off. Along with this, there also needs to be effective management of privileged access on a remote level.
The system needs to ensure that third party engineers managing pieces of equipment (such as MRI scanners) are controlled through the gateway and don’t have access to patients’ files.
In a sensitive sector such as healthcare, it is highly crucial for each link to be secured against delay, disruption, and data loss. Initially, security was considered as an additional layer of technology but with cybercrimes getting alarming day by day, it has now become an essential aspect of any technological deployment regardless of the industry.
Mary Woo is the managing director for South Asia and Korea, Dell Software.
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