The need to reduce costs while caring for an aging population has led to sweeping changes in everything from how patients choose insurers to how doctors are reimbursed and medical records are stored and shared. As a result, the pressures on today’s healthcare CIOs and the data centers they manage are building. Mergers and acquisitions are packing more technology into tighter spaces, growing computational demands are creating crowded equipment racks, and staggering power and cooling requirements are crippling budgets.
According to Logicalis Healthcare Solutions, an international IT solutions and managed services provider, a high percentage of data centers are reaching the end of their lifecycle and are becoming increasingly expensive to maintain, while increased demands are being placed on those data centers for interactive communications among patients, providers, and payers.
“At Logicalis, we call this IT transformation a journey because it isn’t something that happens overnight. This is a multi-stage process requiring significant evaluation of not only IT systems, but also of what the future workflows and business processes will be and how healthcare providers, patients and payers can all seamlessly share time-critical data,” says Karen Burton, Healthcare Business Development Manager, Logicalis US. “It’s a journey that is taking healthcare IT to the new levels of IT sophistication needed to support a substantial business change from volume to value.”
Clearly, healthcare IT is at the height of a much needed transformation. As a result of this transformation, healthcare providers must be prepared for emerging needs in:
– Storage/Vendor-Neutral Archiving
– Patient Engagement/Telehealth
– Mobility/BYOD
– Healthcare IT/Disaster Recovery
– Analytics/Big Data
The following infographic created by Logicalis illustrates why healthcare providers need to view patients as consumers, as well as know all about them prior to their arrival.
