Hospitals and medical providers face many challenges when it comes to running their IT infrastructure.  In a competitive industry where patient satisfaction is paramount, downtime for critical systems can have devastating effects. This post will explore how managed IT services can provide healthcare facilities with the highest quality of care by keeping their technology up and running at all times.

Let’s Start with a Look at Some Health Statistics

The World Health Organization estimates that the total number of patients in hospitals globally will be 1.12 billion by 2015, and 1.56 billion by 2030 [1] . The U.S. Census Bureau says that from 2000 to 2010, the number of Americans aged 65 and older increased 29%, while the number of Americans below age 18 increased only 3% [2] . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over 10 years, the leading cause of death in America was changed from diseases of the heart to malignant neoplasms (cancer) [3] .

The healthcare industry remains one of the primary drivers in the economy.

What are the Needs of Hospitals?

Hospitals are among the most technology-dependent organizations, often making them prime targets for malicious attacks. The demands on IT resources are constantly evolving in order to meet industry regulations, patient needs, and an increase in system complexity. While there is not one solution that will fit every hospital’s needs, many facilities will benefit from a managed IT service provider (MSP):

• Lower costs by optimizing and consolidating staff and equipment.
• Improved uptime with 24/7 support and monitoring to detect threats in real-time.
• Reducing downtime through preventative action plans, such as patching networks.
• Ensuring HIPAA and PCI compliance with central monitoring and management of security solutions.

How Does an MSP Help Hospitals?

Hospitals need many different types of technology to run, including software systems for patient records, billing & collection, electronic medical records (EMR), systems integration, point-of-sale (POS) systems, and many others. MSPs provide the following services to hospitals:

• 24/7 monitoring of critical systems to diagnose network issues through remote monitoring
• Configuration management combined with proactive reporting to fix problems before they negatively impact the hospital’s operations
• Remote support for all endpoints including desktops, laptops, servers, tablets etc.
• A flexible service model to rapidly adjust staffing levels and IT resources.
• Hospitals need to maximize their uptime, but don’t have the cost structure in place to do so. MSPs can provide high-quality solutions at a much lower total cost of ownership than full-time staff would require. How Does an MSP Benefit Patients?
• Hospitals that have a business partner with an MSP can provide their patients with better service from the following:
• 24/7 access to patient records from any connected device.
• Immediate response for system malfunctions.
• Patient scheduling, appointment reminders and other automated services.

Saving hospitals and clinics time and money is the best way to provide patients with a higher level of service. MSPs also improve patient satisfaction by transferring the focus from systems outages to positive patient outcomes.