There are few places on earth where life and death simultaneously co-exist on a razor’s edge. Where every second counts.

Welcome to the hospital.

Hospitals and assisted care facilities got a wake-up call in 2020. The caller was COVID-19. A tsunami event, if ever there was one.

The post-pandemic era for hospitals has left them painfully aware of the shortcomings of their infrastructure. As a result, healthcare facilities have been moving swiftly to upgrade their infrastructure and streamline workflows. Most are moving towards a more technology-centric facility.

As an example, Deltapath Acute is a mobile application that seamlessly integrates data from multiple systems, encompassing nurse call systems, patient records systems, panic value systems, and smart beds, all within a single application accessible from a mobile phone.

Caregivers can prioritize and route patient calls based on urgency, and when a call is received, they have immediate access to the patient’s medical records, location, and live CCTV feeds of the ward.

“Everything is in the hand of the caregivers, equipping them to save lives,” said David Liu, Founder and CEO of Deltapath. “They can communicate immediately with other staff and their patients. They also have real-time access to medical records. Having a tech-driven facility is no longer something ‘good to have,’ it is now a must-have.”

The streamlined coordination of care among different healthcare teams becomes more efficient, as providers can easily reach one another through various clinical modes of communication, such as video calls and instant messaging, conveniently accessible at their fingertips.

By consolidating essential systems and facilitating seamless communication, Deltapath Acute optimizes the delivery of care, ensuring that healthcare staff have immediate access to vital patient information so they can deliver more accurate and timely interventions.

These new technology mandates create new realities. Real-time applications create new demands on a hospital’s Wi-Fi network like IP roaming across multiple access points.

Hospitals must upgrade their Wi-Fi to accommodate these new demands.

“The pandemic was a massive stress test for the healthcare industry,” Liu said. “Hospital staff experienced burnout in the face of overburdened facilities where patients died on their watch, where there weren’t enough beds, and hospital staff risked their lives on every shift. Infrastructure was strained to the limit and major inefficiencies were exposed.”

Post Pandemic Blues

One of the uncomfortable truths is that no one can predict when the next pandemic will strike. No one can forecast the next natural disaster. And everyone in the medical community knows the consequences of the growing size of the ageing population, spurring an increased demand to monitor the safety of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.

Hospitals are confronting uncomfortable realities everywhere all at once.

“The pandemic proved that hospitals need to be more prepared,” Liu said. “And that means upgrading communications systems that can enable healthcare staff to shorten response times and reduce fatigue. Unfortunately, numerous hospitals quickly learn their Wi-Fi infrastructure is outdated, which negatively impacts their communication upgrade.”

Hospitals have to be prepared to respond swiftly and accurately to a wide range of critical situations, like a dementia patient who suddenly gets out of bed and wanders out of the room. And hospitals will require more comprehensive technology solutions to respond to emergencies while maintaining high-quality care for routine patient needs.

Hospitals in Japan Provide a Clue: Private Cellular Service

Japan has one of the largest ageing populations in the world, which exerts tremendous communication demands on their hospitals and assisted care facilities.

Most facilities have or are in the process of upgrading their communications. Expensive Wi-Fi upgrades don’t deter them from implementing them because they have a simple solution.

“In Japan, some of our hospital customers avoided the complex and costly Wi-Fi network upgrades by subscribing to a private LTE service where their mobile carrier would provide network connectivity over cellular infrastructure directly to their local area network without the need for Wi-Fi,” Liu said. When they turn on their phones, they’re on the hospital network and can use Deltapath Acute immediately. There’s no need to reinvest in Wi-Fi.”

Deltapath Acute has been in Japanese hospitals for years. Caregivers have something in their hands that can help make everything alright – the smartphone enhanced by Deltapath Acute.

Click here to learn more about Deltapath Acute. There’s no time to waste.



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