Integrating Patient Infotainment System into Your Existing IT Infrastructure

Save Money With Your Existing Hardware

Integrating Patient Infotainment System into Your Existing IT Infrastructure

Description:

Patient infotainment does not have to be an enormous investment. Chances are your existing IT infrastructure and medical computers can handle the new system with ease.

Keywords:

medical computers

medical grade computers

infotainment

patient engagement

Text body:

Patient infotainment is becoming the new norm as hospitals shift to patient-centric care model. In the pursuit of the feasible solution for the patient infotainment system, decision-makers need to decide whether their facility needs an expensive addition to their infrastructure, or if they can leverage the existing infrastructure to accommodate their patient engagement solution. What hospitals often don’t realize is infotainment does not have to be an enormous investment.

Why Infotainment

Patients’ satisfaction rates depend largely on the quality of communication they have with the doctors and nurses, and the level of control they have over their care plan, productivity, and entertainment. Even though infotainment systems go beyond medical care, they ensure maximum patient comfort.

Bedside infotainment offers patients the convenience they never had before. Providing phone and video calls, chats, movies, games, productivity apps, access to the internet, patient portal and care plan information, doctors’ names and schedules – infotainment becomes the control panel for your patients.

On the other hand, infotainment systems reduce the workload for nurses and physicians. With interactive educational presentations, gamification and communication, patients are more self-sufficient and require less help from the nurses.

Leveraging Existing Infrastructure

Tight budgets urge healthcare facilities to seek solutions that allow them to consolidate multiple devices and systems into one. Patient infotainment is one of those health IT elements that fits well into the existing IT infrastructure of the hospitals. It integrates perfectly into the medical computers powering patient care systems.

The medical grade computers provide the necessary processing power to accommodate the patient care system, EHR, and infotainment. These PCs can converge several costly solutions in one device. So, chances are much of the infrastructure you need to implement infotainment is already in place.

If infotainment is your patients’ control panel, the medical computer that runs patient care system and interfaces with the medical equipment is your staff’s control panel. The direct access to hospital information system, EHR, and patient tracking system allows your employees to perform most of their duties at the bedside, in real time. Your staff can view electronic patient records, update them, and retrieve data instantly during the episode of care, not after it.

Patient infotainment is easily integrated into the patient care system using the existing medical grade computers. They can be mounted on the wall, bedside arm or medical cart to better suit the needs of your staff and the requirements of your patients.

Medical Computer Converges Infotainment with Patient Care System

A feasible solution that would integrate infotainment into the existing infrastructure you use for patient care requires several key components.

Processing Power, Upgradability

Powerful processor, ample memory, and storage are pre-requisites of any system slated to run EHR and all the programs that make the patient care system. A powerful computer can handle those plus the infotainment system with ease, without requiring upgrades.

Moreover, a medical grade computer allows upgrades and expansions, and an overall advanced customization. So, adding yet another healthcare suite of apps is hassle-free and requires minimum tweaking.

Upgradable computers are future-proof investments, as they allow hospitals to expand their capabilities, remaining relevant and state-of-the-art during the entire lifecycle of the device.

Usability

Ease of use must be at the core of the concept, be it for infotainment or EHR system. Familiar Windows interface and intuitive layout of menus, as well as smooth, responsive touch screen, help your patients get familiar with the system from the get-go.

At the same time, your staff won’t have to overcome yet another learning curve when mastering the ins and outs of the infotainment system and how it interfaces with the EHR and other apps. It is important that the new solutions do not add to your staff’s burnout.

Security

Physical and digital security of infotainment systems call for HIPAA-compliant medical grade computers, which enables:

 Advanced authentication with RFID Imprivata SSO, Smart Card Reader, CAC or biometric scanner, so that the sensitive data in EHR and other hospital systems is only accessible to authorized personnel.

 Patients can also use their RFID-enabled wristbands to log into infotainment portal.

 Full disk encryption, encryption of data at rest and in transit, ability to encrypt data on external drives.

 Remote device locking, locating, wiping, installing updates and patches.

 Software sandboxing, white- and blacklisting connections, apps, and IPs.

 Disabling/enabling individual hardware components.

 Setting up various user profiles (one for medical staff, another for patients).

Compatibility

Adding infotainment to your existing medical computers requires access and data sharing with other solutions within your infrastructure, such as:

 EHR

 patient scheduling

 nurse call

 dietary systems

 admission, discharge and transfer system

 environmental controls

 access to the Internet, productivity and entertainment apps

Medical computers you use for patient care and monitoring already possess all the necessary programs and interfaces. All you need to do is install infotainment system and configure it to interface with other systems, or sandbox it, depending on your needs.

Medical grade computers used for patient care systems come with legacy ports and advanced connectivity options, as well as energy efficiency, internal backup battery or even hot-swap batteries that make it autonomous. So if your infotainment system should require compatibility with legacy systems, you won’t have any issues setting it up.

Remote Administration

Medical computers provide the necessary features for remote administration so that your admins can manage the large fleet of devices without requiring physical access to them. This effectively alleviates the pressure on your already overloaded ITs and simplifies their cybersecurity efforts.

Affordable

Due to their MIL-STD components, medical computers have an overall failure rate of less than 2% under 24/7 use in healthcare, for 5-8 years. This means minimum maintenance and low TCO.

Safe for Near-Patient Use

Medical computers are ideal for infotainment because of their radiation and electrical safety and infection control. Antimicrobial casing eliminates pathogens non-stop. IP65 sealed bezels let your staff disinfect the devices properly, with harsh chemical solutions.

Stringent tests and compliance with industry standards and certifications ensure the electrical and radiation safety of medical computers. You would not want any sub-par consumer grade laptop or tablet to hamper your patient safety or infection control.

Final Words

Patient satisfaction reigns supreme in modern value-based care. With Medicare reimbursement dependent on patient satisfaction, hospitals pursue patient-centric strategies. More so, high satisfaction rates help attract new and retain existing patients, as they share their experiences on social media. State-of-the-art medical grade computers are at the core of patient care systems, and they can help hospitals integrate infotainment systems seamlessly, without excessive spending or the need to buy new hardware.