Comment: NHS trusts woefully unprepared for wearables
Ennio Carboni of Ipswitch discusses how NHS trusts need to implement 'wear your own device' policies in an effort to enhance patient care
In this article, Ennio Carboni, executive vice president of customer solutions at Ipswitch offers advice on how NHS trusts can prepare a ‘wear your own device’ policy and covers the topics of security, infrastructure, usage, privacy and governance
Wearable technology has rapidly shifted from the world of science fiction to reality, with great health and welfare benefits promised.
There is little doubt that wearable technology will play a major role in shaping health care going forward
NHS trusts, however, seem to be behind the trend for Wear Your Own Device (WYOD), both in terms of employees adopting the technology, and healthcare devices that could benefit patient care.
A recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Ipswitch has revealed that when asked specifically about managing wearable technology entering the workplace – from Google Glass to smart watches – 83% of NHS trusts admitted to having no strategy in place. The FOIA request was designed to identify whether public sector organisations, including 122 NHS trusts, were putting in place effective plans to meet the challenge of managing a growing number of devices on their networks.
There is little doubt that wearable technology will play a major role in shaping health care going forward. According to market research company, IDC, nearly 112 million wearable devices will be sold by 2018, a 78.4% hike on predicted sales of 19 million for this year. Most of these devices will fall into the health-related arena.
Wearable technology can do much to improve nursing efficiency and boost patient satisfaction. By tracking how a care team performs on a shift and patient outcome, an NHS trust can better plan its resources, for example. Wearable vital sign monitors are already being deployed to collect patient data on a frequent basis, keeping nurses up to date so that they can better manager their workload.
If trusts do not take action quickly to prepare for the wearable revolution they will suffer network performance degradation and downtime as their infrastructure struggles to cope with the load
The healthcare industry is a great fit for wearables, which can enable medical staff to make decisions faster and escalate urgent care, by better sharing information. In directing the right resources, in the right timescales, wearables can also improve overall quality of care and the patient’s experience.
So, while wearable technology can do much to help patient outcome, better deploy resources and improve communication, many NHS trusts are still getting their heads around the challenges of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). They are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to wearable technology and have no plans in place to cope with an influx of devices that could dramatically improve efficiency, but instead will leave their networks struggling and open to security risks with no roadmap in place.
The FOIA request looked at whether trusts were using network management tools effectively to manage their networks. It explored whether they were adequately prepared for what is around the corner in terms of new innovations, including security and network bandwidth issues that would come with the rapid deployment of WYOD among employees for both personal and professional use. The request found that despite having feature rich tool sets, only 38% of trusts across the UK are able to differentiate between wired and wireless devices on their network.
It also revealed that despite 100% of trusts having invested in network management tools, only 26% actually reviewed network performance regularly during office hours. In addition, even though performance was cited as a key priority by 97% of NHS trusts, 43% review network performance on a weekly basis or less frequently. Seven went as far as admitting they did not review network performance at all.
If implemented correctly wearables could improve employee productivity, improve patient satisfaction and actually improve levels of care by best leveraging resources and monitoring workflow
From the request, it appears that budget-stretched NHS trusts appear to be adopting network management tools with feature sets they will never use or don’t actually need. Yet, they are unable to siphon data on the devices that are logged onto their network.
If trusts do not take action quickly to prepare for the wearable revolution they will suffer network performance degradation and downtime as their infrastructure struggles to cope with the load, which could affect patient care. They need to stand back and take a serious look at their networks and create a roadmap for future growth, ensuring maximum performance while shoring up security. If they don’t the arrival of WYOD will see them sleep walking into a dangerous situation.
The first place to start is developing a policy for WYOD to chart where devices will hang off their infrastructure and then work out a policy to protect the trust and all of its data, much of which is highly sensitive.
NHS trusts need to look carefully at privacy and legal issues when it comes to wearables too. With Google Glass, for example, could there be a security breach in leaking patient information? Remember, wearable devices have adequate storage and robust operating systems. Linked to a cloud document management system data can quickly and easily leak out into the public domain. These devices are basically surveillance equipment in the wrong hands.
With these issue in mind, NHS trusts ignore setting up WYOD policies at their own peril. Wearables may seem the stuff of movies, but within the healthcare sector, they are becoming a reality faster than any other.
Preparing a WYOD policy
NHS trusts can tackle the oncoming challenges of WYOD by creating trustwide policies to strengthen network access points, security, monitoring and management to ensure they can handle the wearable trend from the onset. Any policy should give serious consideration to, and planning for:
Wearables may seem the stuff of movies, but within the healthcare sector, they are becoming a reality faster than any other
- Security: Security is paramount. WYOD is not as obvious as smartphones and tablets. Make sure you know what devices are logging into the network when and have clear security procedures in place that employees fully understand. At the same time they may want to consider different security profiles for various Wi-Fi networks, to ensure critical and sensitive data is protected
- Infrastructure: Increased devices will lead to more-complex data going through your network from diverse environments with possibly different needs, ranging from clinical and research to academic and administrative. Will your current network infrastructure be able to cope, or will it seriously hobble its performance and cause bottlenecks and worst case scenario – downtime?
- Usage: Ensure your policy clearly states who can bring wearables into the organisation and where users can log on, so you don’t open the door to security breaches and privacy issues
- Privacy and Governance: Look carefully at the legal and privacy issues surrounding wearables as well as governance and best practice. For example, a consultant wearing Google Glass by be accused by a patient of recording a consultation and invading their privacy
By having a wearable policy in place that is clearly understood by employees and revisited regularly, NHS trusts will be able to capitalise on this new breed of computing that crosses the line between business and personal use. If implemented correctly wearables could improve employee productivity, improve patient satisfaction and actually improve levels of care by best leveraging resources and monitoring workflow. But they need to act now!
