6 ways standardizing patient monitoring helps teams manage networks and assets

As system consolidation and technological transformation continue across healthcare, IT and biomed teams face growing pressures with patient monitoring – not only to maintain equipment and network performance, but to also guard against growing dangers to data privacy and security.

A patchwork approach to monitoring often hinders those efforts. Purchased monitors may not have been designed to integrate seamlessly. Local servers can proliferate as systems get installed piecemeal, adding to complexity, possible instability and potential vulnerabilities. Confusion may even arise over what devices are on the network, how they’re managed and how they communicate.

Despite their best efforts, technical teams may struggle to find the time and other resources to constantly manage the jumble of vendors, monitors and software (often including variations in revision levels from the same vendor). It can become a never-ending task, one that can introduce variability and affect monitoring uptime and security.

An IDN-wide approach for patient monitoring takes a different approach, starting with planning and implementation. While clinical requirements remain paramount, system-wide technical and security standards get applied when assessing options. The goal is a simpler and more cohesive system that not only repels threats but promotes continued innovation.

A standardized and centralized solution can:

The presence of disparate monitoring platforms means technical teams must wrangle a wider range of protocols, interfaces and data formats. This variety poses challenges for integrating with other information systems such as ADT and the EMR and keeping those connections stable, particularly when firmware and software get updated.

A single monitoring solution helps ease that complexity, supporting the consistent and flexible data access that clinical teams depend on. By promoting systems integration, it can also help reduce manual information entry on the floor, a workaround that can introduce errors.

A further opportunity comes from the interoperability some solutions offer, with the ability to pull in data from other medical devices connected to patients.

By unifying their patient monitoring architecture, health systems can leave a smaller technical footprint to build and manage, including potentially fewer servers (and server licenses), data closets and, at times, domains. Standardized communication protocols and device interfaces may also reduce the number of gateways required.

This streamlining results in fewer points of potential failure and can help ease administrative and maintenance burdens. With servers, centralization also enables a more updated solution, through virtualization.

A unified solution means technical teams can focus on managing a single, comprehensive system, rather than attempting to oversee multiple siloed platforms.

By gaining unified visibility across the enterprise, teams can track network health and potentially respond more quickly and effectively when interruptions occur. They can create maintenance programs, including schedules for planned downtime when system updates are needed. And they can follow standard workflows while promoting consistent staff training.

Centralization also enables the use of enterprise-wide tools that can help monitor the network and its assets, support troubleshooting, and identify opportunities for improvement.

IT teams may find it difficult to secure their monitoring ecosystems when they can’t fully design and manage them. Taking an enterprise-wide approach, on the other hand, can help health systems protect valuable, sensitive data, identify and address vulnerabilities, and proactively respond to threats.

The potential reduction in domains and servers with centralization can make it easier to keep network components secure and updated, with fewer access points and places for cyber-threats to hide. (If problems do occur, centralized systems are easier to back up and recover.)

Possible security benefits of monitoring unification include:

With the number of monitor types reduced through standardization and remaining devices using the same technical platform, testing and maintenance become more streamlined for biomed teams. A common solution means that monitors have spare parts in common, supporting repairs. It may also provide an opportunity to reduce the variety of cables and other supplies required.

When it comes to training care teams, a standard monitor interface and common workflows can make the job easier. Some monitoring solutions also provide a platform for centralized asset management, to quickly view device information, troubleshoot problems, gauge utilization, and plan around inventory and capacity.

The shared infrastructure of a standardized and connected solution provides the ability to more easily add monitors to an existing care site or even incorporate a new location onto the platform – scalability not possible with fragmented systems. Since additional components follow the same data standards and protocols, a new Interoperability Standards Advisory is likely not required.

A single deployment can also allow health systems to flex their equipment to meet sudden spikes in demand, with monitors shareable across beds on the same domain. And it can help health systems more easily adopt new technologies or care models to stay at the forefront of innovation.