Before embarking on a digital transformation journey, healthcare and life sciences organizations should assess the gaps in their existing infrastructure, according to a new published eBook by Equinix and HIMSS. 

Addressing Evolving Healthcare Needs in The New Normal: A Case for Digital Infrastructure, explores the effects of COVID-19 on digital health in the Asia-Pacific region.  The pandemic has seen many healthcare and life sciences organizations leverage technology through strategic partnerships to enhance the efficiency of their services.

Yet, despite the encouraging strides made in digital health, the right enablers may not have been put in place to maintain the trajectory of digital acceleration. The eBook stresses that rather than applying stopgap measures, organizations must identify their digital health priorities and adopt appropriate strategies to address them. Under the "new normal", healthcare and life sciences organizations need to innovate quickly and keep up with the ever-evolving landscape.

Building a Robust Digital Structure 

According to the latest IBM X-Force report, cyberattacks on the healthcare industry doubled in 2020, with most of the attacks targeted at COVID-19 response efforts. In the APAC HIMSS digital health trendbarometer report 2021, 87% of all surveyed healthcare organizations in Asia-Pacific ranked IT security and data privacy as their top digital health priority over the next 12 months. The pandemic has reshaped the definition of critical infrastructure and exposed systems and network vulnerabilities, giving attackers the opportunity to act with malicious intent. 

HIMSS recommends the Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM) to help healthcare and life sciences organizations identify benchmarks for setting up their digital infrastructure and ensuring their systems are stable and manageable. 

Despite innovations in the industry, many organizations need to upgrade the IT architecture supporting critical information processing and medical devices. Not doing so increases cybersecurity risks, as legacy systems lack regular maintenance, software updates and patches. Also, these systems are not able to interoperate between data types or integrate with new applications, limiting the potential to grow, scale and innovate. 

Enhancing the User Experience 

Although data is increasing at an explosive rate, the volume of data used for further advancements is still marginal. The process of tapping into the potential of data is contingent on the quality of data exchanges, digital workflows and analytical advantages. 

By integrating a distributed infrastructure model, organizations can make interconnectivity, regulatory compliance, analytics and edge computing a possibility. Remote patient care and monitoring can be more immediate and helpful by incorporating advancements such as Internet of Things (IoT), AI and edge computing.

Additionally, a hybrid multicloud architecture can enable organizations to extend their digital infrastructure capabilities closer to edge locations where users, offices and devices are located. 

Leveraging a rich ecosystem of partners

The eBook recommends healthcare and life sciences organizations to deploy digital infrastructure in an ecosystem-dense location in order to establish private low-latency connections with business partners, service providers and others. This would equip organizations to build new digital services and collaborate to improve care delivery models for better patient outcomes. These benefits could also extend to administrative functions such as billing, insurance and human resources.

It concludes that by harnessing the capabilities of ecosystem partners through interconnection, organizations can ensure business continuity and enhanced user experience.

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Click here to access the eBook.