Now is the Time to Optimize Your Network and Facilities with the Cloud

Revolutionary medical devices that are used to treat patients have helped the healthcare industry make great strides in improving patient care but not everyone is making the most of that data or even harvesting it in the first place. Some healthcare networks spend millions of dollars on new equipment, technologies and solutions that lack the cloud integration required to capture actionable data with the potential to improve their decision making, use context to improve patient care even further and generate a better adoption rate of the technology and return on their investments (ROI).

More Data Means Better Decisions

When data is collected, stored and accessible to clinicians and managers, they can tailor their decisions to each patient’s progress or needs. On the ground, you may notice the difference this data makes in fields such as physical therapy and rehabilitation, where clinicians and patients work tirelessly to restore critical function. At the executive level, enough patient data tells you even more about inefficiencies and opportunities to improve internal processes, training and managerial decisions, and reduce costs or improve care throughout your network. No new technology should be meant to collect dust in your facilities but to drive better patient outcomes, reduce costs and increase access; supporting your teams on the technology adoption curve to ensure the best asset utilization is a key task for your management.

When your network properly uses cloud-integrated analytics for some time, everyone from frontline clinicians to C-level executives will learn, benefit and notice a difference in their ability to do their jobs, simultaneously creating more advocates for this technology and improving utilization and adoption.

Of course, your patients will also see the difference. Recovery requires motivation and when you are able to update patients accurately and frequently on their progress, they will become even more motivated to power through their treatment. Your clinicians, many of whom chose their careers to help improve patients’ lives, will be overjoyed and continue clamoring for more use of the cloud at the patient level.

The value of all of the data collected by cloud-integrated medical devices during patient care lies primarily in its objectivity. Through no fault of their own, human clinicians record data that is biased, based on what they see, think they see or want to see. Machines do not need to think about what they see, so the data they record is more objective and more appropriate for basing decisions on. This is by no means a technology to replace humans, rather a technology that can greatly improve humans’ performance by shifting some of the burden away from them so they can focus on what matters most.

How Your Analytics Provider Can Help

As executives of large healthcare organizations will be (sometimes painfully) aware, 10 different healthcare facilities can operate in 10 ways, using 10 sets of processes and standards. With that in mind, your cloud-integrated analytics solution requires customization so that each of your facilities can get the most out of it. 

As you can tell by now, adoption can snowball into more adoption, so training your managers and clinicians in the use of cloud-integrated analytics is key to getting any value out of the technology. Your technology provider should offer this training virtually or in person so your staff can immediately start using data to improve patient care at the micro level and increase efficiency at the network level.

What it All Means for Your Network

The proper gathering, storage and interpretation of data can yield significant results for your healthcare network. Your frontline medical staff who handle these cloud-integrated devices day to day will have more tools and actionable intelligence to improve the quality and efficiency of care, which can pass on cost savings to patients. Thrilled with better and less expensive care, your patients will refer other patients to you, increasing your network’s ability to generate revenue.

All of this may sound great but it is not always easy to convince executives and boards of directors to commit appropriate sums of money to new technologies. As the data revolution continues, data will only become more critical in improving operations, so any investment in leveraging data now may prevent you from playing catch-up when data is no longer a helpful tool but instead the primary tool, in a consolidating industry where these competitive advantages make differences to your patients, your referral networks, payers and your own staff.

After committing to cloud-integrated medical devices, remember: educating your staff on the benefits of this technology, sharing an objective diagnosis of this technology utilization and impact, and training them to use it properly is what will allow you to have a snowball effect day after day and make your teams happier in their daily routines, increase your network’s capabilities and realize the ROI.

About the author

Eric Dusseux, M.D., MSc, MBA, is chief executive officer of , a robotics company focused on providing rehabilitation and mobility solutions to individuals with neurological and mobility challenges. The company’s product portfolio includes its InMotion® robots for rehabilitation following stroke and other neurological conditions, as well as InMotion Connect™, a cloud-based data analytics solution that securely streams and stores anonymized data from all connected InMotion® robotics devices to BIONIK’s cloud server hosted by Amazon AWS, providing contextual and relevant data to reach hospital clinicians and management teams.