Uptime is crucial for every industry, but for healthcare, it is even more critical and sometimes literally a matter of life and death. This is mainly due to the growing dependence on cloud services and data. Healthcare institutions increasingly use data in real-time to provide immediate smart care, such as remote healthcare, home automation, and robotics. This data is more frequently stored in the cloud, emphasizing the need for sufficient capacity and 24/7 availability 365 days a year in terms of connectivity.
Therefore, complete physical redundancy is a requirement to prevent life-threatening situations for clients and patients. Connectivity is vital for linking the data collected by sensors, the smart algorithms they use, and the innovations that enable preventive care. It all starts with a reliable fiber-optic connection that is 100% redundant. You can learn how to achieve this in this blog article.
The Development of Healthcare: Increasingly New Technologies
Modern healthcare is becoming increasingly dependent on new technologies such as:
- Algorithms that collect, compare, and assess health data from a client or patient. They replace or support routine checks by doctors or healthcare personnel and can, in combination with data from patient records, make predictions about (potential) health risks someone may face.
- Smart sensors help healthcare workers remotely monitor and provide the right care when needed. Sensors are set to someone's personal situation, and if there is a deviation in, for example, movement or behavior (e.g., if a patient falls), the sensor triggers an alarm.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) can contribute to better healthcare and more precise clinical outcomes in various ways. This includes predictive models for medical conditions or the application of image and speech recognition to automate and streamline repetitive processes.
The Internet of Things (IoT). This technology allows healthcare institutions and hospitals to use semi-intelligent devices. Think of smart, internet-connected blood pressure and glucose meters, smartwatches continuously monitoring essential health metrics, or route apps guiding patients and visitors in the hospital.
The Importance of Redundancy
The forms of healthcare outlined above cannot be achieved without the latest technology. To ensure that there are no interruptions in technology-driven healthcare, you need stable and redundant connections.
A connection is truly redundant only when you create two geographically separated connections. The connections must run through a different cable and ideally connect to a different contact point. True redundancy also involves using both redundant links and redundant network equipment, such as routers and switches.
The first step towards a powerful, reliable, and fully redundant connection is establishing a good fiber optic connection for your operations. Then it's crucial to ensure that this connection is truly redundant. To achieve this, you need to determine the geographical location of the cables.
Working with two different providers does not necessarily equate to maximum redundancy. Both providers could use the same trench when laying their cables. The result? False redundancy with all its associated risks. Therefore, it's wise to arrange complete redundancy with one provider who can prove and document the geographical location of their cables using maps. Additionally, the same provider can prevent simultaneous maintenance on both connections, a risk associated with using two different providers.
How Does Eurofiber Help?
Eurofiber is the only provider in Belgium that can demonstrate the exact location of the cables for your connection. We show this through drawings and floor plans, ensuring you are 100% certain that your connection is redundant, with no chance of interruption to your healthcare services. Moreover, Eurofiber guarantees that maintenance will never occur simultaneously on two separate connections.
Fiber optic is the best choice to ensure that your healthcare institution's connectivity is future-proof. Eurofiber's fiber optic network is an open and partner-independent network. You choose your own service provider for the services
More information
Would you like to know more about connectivity in healthcare? And are you curious about Eurofiber's solutions that enable optimal connectivity? Feel free to call us at +32 (0)2 307 12 00 or fill out the contact form on our website.
