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Improvised Treatment Locations
Improvised Treatment Locations
Care in times of crisis
Whether in response to a natural disaster, man-made disaster or outbreak that threatens public health, healthcare organizations must prepare for situations that call for the urgent expansion of clinical capacity. To enable temporary facilities and effectively extend service capabilities, an organization's network must be delivered to the new locations so clinicians can safely and securely provide access to applications, like the EHR.
By considering four key technology domains, organizations can ensure they're prepared to deliver the clinical care needed in any emergency situation. WWT's experts help organizations understand available solutions, provide insight on which tools and strategies are most critical to success, and accelerate clear paths to rapid procurement, deployment and adoption through a one-hour consultation.
Business Continuity Series: Improvised Facilities
Whether in response to a natural disaster or outbreak that threatens public health, healthcare organizations must prepare for situations that call for the urgent expansion of clinical capacity. WWT Chief Healthcare Advisors Dr. Justin Collier and Dr. Sanaz Cordes, and Kait Miller, a business development manager specializing in Meraki Smart Cameras and video analytics, discuss best practices in quickly setting up these facilities and what providers can do to best plan for future events.
Collaboration
Scalable solutions that provide reliable voice, video and data throughput are critical to ensuring providers can deliver quality care in temporary clinical settings. This communication is vital for care coordination and patient care during urgent and emergent situations. Healthcare organizations are increasingly turning to enterprise videoconferencing solutions to assist them. These tools are easy to deploy, customize and adopt — and they can be enabled nationwide at hundreds of locations simultaneously. Many of these collaboration solutions have the added benefit of providing clinicians and patients with simplicity and a superior user experience.
Read about collaboration solutions for business continuity >
End-User Computing
Proper crisis care extends beyond on-site interaction with patients. Whether through laptops, tablets or mobile devices, clinicians need access to clinical applications, data streams and desktop systems to have a 360-degree view of a patient's health from wherever they're working. Technology that simplifies remote access to patient data can help providers optimize diagnosis and treatment in field settings. Additionally, technology that helps streamline triage workflows can allow providers to see patients more efficiently.
Read about end-user computing solutions for business continuity >
Network Connectivity
Reliable and resilient network connectivity is a must for temporary or improvised treatment locations. In areas where Internet availability can range from strong to spotty to non-existent, technology must be leveraged to provide necessary access and bandwidth. Given the ever-present need for security and compliance, urgent networks should connect securely to or live within the health system's network, if at all possible. Portable Wi-Fi/LTE routers and mobile access points or hotspots that can "dial back" into the organization's network can give providers the necessary level of connectivity and security assurance they need to deliver remote care from any location.
Security
The same cybersecurity requirements concerning PHI that apply in standard hospital settings may also apply to improvised treatment centers. Even when HIPAA and other regulations are temporarily suspended in states of emergency, hospitals must still defend their networks from cyberattack. For chief information security officers (CISOs), that means protecting connections at high risk for data breach. Fortunately, the use of extended VPN technology, coupled with reliable managed services, can secure even the most remote urgent care networks, critical health data and clinical infrastructure.
Read about security solutions for business continuity >