Tight budgets harming your healthcare organization? Optimize your network and save
Published: February 9, 2024
It is no secret that healthcare is facing severe budgetary constraints. This impacts everything from the quality of healthcare delivered, to staff workload, to the quality and resilience of the network. Indeed, recent research conducted by HIMSS Market Insights for Extreme Networks found that 57% of respondents were suffering from financial and inflationary issues like increasing supply costs. Expenses are rising for both supply and labor, which further affects the ability to invest in IT and other infrastructure.
As a result, the technical debt (or the cost of short-term IT fixes over comprehensive solutions) is exacerbated, which in turn puts pressure on other aspects of quality healthcare. However, there are ways that you can optimize your healthcare network and save your organization money. By prioritizing your network, you can provide the most efficient and effective experience for patients while helping staff feel and act as their most productive selves. The network must be seen as an essential tool within your healthcare delivery mandate. From there, we’re seeing that the healthcare organizations that do are able to effectively drive down costs, increase efficiencies, and optimize patient care.
Wi-Fi 6E is the Foundation for Savings
A key component of the network is Wi-Fi technology, which is the glue that binds healthcare operations together. Specifically, the 6 Ghz spectrum can accommodate high-bandwidth, mission-critical applications, as well as emergent IoMT devices. As a result, a healthcare organization is better able to deliver new products, services, and training for all users including patients and their families, clinicians and staff. This allows administrators a bigger and better picture of the use of all applications and devices, which helps IT anticipate any issues or the need for additional planning . This lowers operating costs by increasing efficiencies, as well as assuages the technical debt. Your healthcare network and staff must be regarded as a strategic asset, and it must be able to operate beyond 100% uptime.
If not, patient lives could be at risk if the network shuts down, or your organization could lose precious data and savings.
Greater Efficiency for Greater Savings
When a healthcare organization has an efficient, streamlined IT network, the bottom line is bound to improve. OSF Healthcare of Illinois and Michigan was facing challenges in providing a network infrastructure that could support continuous connectivity across different campuses. It also lacked network agility for supporting business and research needs. And management faced difficulties with automation capabilities. All of these challenges combined create budgetary pressures, as they could not rely on their network to perform basic tasks. By implementing a network fabric solution from Extreme, the organization achieved a 30% reduction in capital savings and a 60% reduction in maintenance costs. Collin Summers, Director of Network Services, said that Extreme Fabric allows the company to deliver the right features at the best cost.
A Network Combination That Leads to Further Savings
In addition to network fabric, the right network elements (like cloud management, AI analytics, and wireless solutions) can work together to provide further savings: time-saving operational efficiencies to IT teams Network agility for supporting business needs and advanced research capabilities Ease of management via automation capabilities With an optimized network, healthcare organizations can enjoy capital replacement savings, maintenance reductions, a simplified network, and guaranteed connectivity. A Healthcare Network That Supports Your Bottom Line While the healthcare industry is undergoing seismic changes, there are tools that can pave the way for an easier, streamlined, and cost-effective transition. Optimize your network to achieve savings while bringing new features that will improve your bottom line.