If you haven’t been under a rock during the past couple of years, you would be aware of the loads of media coverage the health care industry has received. One of the least mentioned variables of today’s health care is the need for a modernized, future-ready network infrastructure technology.
Such backbone technology has become so vital to the success of a health care system relying more and more on digital exchanges of information. Factor in the popularity of telemedicine and the emergence of health care exchanges stemming from the Affordable Care Act, and you realize just how important a role technology has in today’s health care systems.
Modern technology used to be a nice-to-have for the health care industry, today’s it’s not only needed to be successful, technology is needed to remain operational. This paradigm shift happened seemingly overnight.
Here’s what Juniper Networks has to say about the challenge facing healthcare:
The Challenge
The proliferation of network-connected mobile end user devices providing access to content-rich applications across all departments of a healthcare organization is a trend that is far from hitting the top of its curve. Attempting to manage and control security on these multiple user devices running a range of operating systems and security protocols increases complexity, introduces more risks, and results in even higher costs for healthcare IT groups.
The new healthcare network requires a comprehensive security solution managed and delivered at the connection level (not by device or physical port), capable of access rights management, remote data wiping, and full enforcement of security policies on any device, anywhere, anytime.
In a world where most doctors, clinicians, and hospital staff, are trending toward using these wireless devices first and their wired devices second, the hospital premises network needs to be ready to support this shift. This doesn’t mean an end to the wired network. Rather, it means that re-balancing the wired and wireless network infrastructures is needed. So how do you evolve your healthcare network to take advantage of new mobile devices and the bandwidth hungry applications that they offer?