Due to new health regulations and precautions, consumers, and businesses have adopted behaviors that will impact various sectors of the economy for the long term.
One of the most affected industries is at the forefront of fighting COVID-19: hospitals. With unprecedented staffing and capacity issues, hospitals across the globe have to find new ways to remain functional while ensuring a high quality of care. In addition, hospitals must support productivity and efficiency at a time when burnout and turnover have reached new levels for healthcare workers.
As the industry navigates these new clinical dynamics, one thing is clear: the answers to these questions will require better connectivity.
Connectivity for Security
During the pandemic, COVID-patient intake volumes have surged. Unfortunately, this increase occurred in addition to the existing medical cases that still requiring treatment. So, how could hospitals ensure safety and minimize virus exposure to staff and other patients?
One of the first solutions to this dilemma was telemedicine, which helped reduce the number of patients going to the hospital by enabling remote medical care, care support, consultations, health monitoring, and diagnosis via video call. Hospitals were also able to conduct telephone screenings before appointments to further streamline the process and prevent patients from unnecessary exposure to COVID and hospital congestion.
It’s worth noting that telemedicine regulation has accelerated since March 2020. After a slow early evolution, regulatory bodies are now obliged to facilitate access to the technology, which is now certain to remain in use beyond the pandemic. Companies also saw the importance of cellular infrastructure, which helped speed the adoption of several new applications for telemedicine beyond primary medical care.
Connectivity for the Patient Experience
In addition to supporting patients’ overall health, telecommunications are becoming essential for patients, family members, and staff to contact family and friends, as the vast majority of patients are now isolated from others as a safety precaution.
Imagine contacting the virus, requiring hospitalization, and not being able to update your family on your condition. Ensuring high-quality connectivity within a hospital prioritizes the emotional health of patients and their families.
Connectivity for Productivity
Another key benefit of connectivity is increased communications between clinical staff: notifications, results notices and reports, access to medical records and histories. A hospital network powered by a high-connectivity system reduces the need for movement within premises, consequently reducing the risk of contagion and the time needed to access critical health information. This has a dramatic effect on quality of care.
DAS: The Solution That Fits the Healthcare World
Connectivity has become a top priority for hospitals. However, how can hospitals ensure they have the right networks to support current and emerging applications?
This is where Distributed Antenna Systems (or DAS) come into play. DAS has emerged as the best way to improve connectivity in hospital networks, since it ensures reliable coverage throughout an entire hospital, protects users from cybersecurity threats, and supports mobility technology. DAS also protects previous investment in hospital WiFi, which was previously forced to host both the non-sensitive traffic appropriate for WiFi as well as the critical-care traffic better suited to a more secure option like LTE.
What makes QMC a great partner for hospitals?
Backed by years of experience and the success stories of our loyal customers in healthcare, QMC has developed best-in-class processes to ensure the best connectivity solution. We know how to serve hospitals best by leveraging:
- Our team’s extensive technical expertise.
- Constant communication to guarantee adaptability and versatility in the face of changing scenarios.
- Reliable, high-quality partners that support us with state-of-the-art tools and technology.
- Premium components from trusted suppliers to ensure quality in all processes and materials used: from antennas to our team’s uniforms and PPE.
With QMC, your DAS implementation doesn’t end at the point of delivery. Our team closely monitors all QMC networks via our 24/7/365 GNOC (Global Network Operation Center) and robust maintenance and operations plans. We guarantee a system’s performance over the long term—at least 10 years—so your infrastructure always operates at the highest level of coverage and capacity. We also offer a variety of flexible financing options that allow health systems to fulfill their capital and spending requirements, including the option of a fully off-balance sheet transaction through our Opex-only model.
With QMC, your hospital’s new normal is 100% connected
Hospitals hope to return to more stable operations as soon as possible. QMC can help establish a future for healthcare that’s more connected and headache-free than ever. We are proud to have implemented dozens of systems in the healthcare space and helped hospitals adapt to COVID as well as prepare for the future of clinical care.
If you want to know more about our experience working with hospitals, check out this post about our work at Hospital Perinatal Barra in Rio de Janeiro.
