Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation, energy management, building management, and automation technologies.
The company says its aim is to create a hospital environment that aid patients’ treatment and recovery, and ‘maximise patient comfort in an energy-efficient way’. Siemens said: “By using an integrated digital platform to manage your building management, safety, and energy systems, you can help improve patient and staff wellbeing, increase visibility of your building and assets, and simultaneously reduce energy costs and ensure security of supply. Hospitals are, of course, one of the most important types of building in society, and therefore reliability and safety are key. Siemens has the capacity to transform hospitals into ‘smart’ hospitals, that can interact with the people inside them to create a more comfortable, safer environment, while operating at lower energy costs.
“Smart buildings have the capability to notice a potential malfunction before it becomes a problem, so maintenance can take place without the hospital noticing any effects. The need for smart hospitals is becoming ever more apparent, given the ageing population and a shrinking workforce. There is becoming a need for hospitals to ease staff’s workload by creating a more comfortable environment for patients automatically, and improving staff’s productivity via the ability to quickly and efficiently track equipment. This is important, as on average, a nurse will spend around 72 minutes per shift searching for equipment.”
Siemens says that the twin goals goal of good patient care and cost-effective hospital management can be ‘transformed’ by creating ‘a smart, connected hospital’. It said: “This involves mapping the patient journey, right through from getting to the hospital, parking, and booking in, to having treatment and the follow-up aftercare. Integrating building management, energy, hospital operational systems, and even external systems such as weather and traffic, onto one digital management platform can enable a smooth patient journey, while helping improve patient and staff wellbeing with increased visibility of your building and systems.
“Data analysis on energy consumption, room utilisation, and asset health and location, will enable you to move from reactive to proactive management of people and infrastructure, reduce risk, reduce costs, and allow you to keep the hospital flexible and resilient to ever- changing needs. A move to a smart hospital requires a change in mindset – to think about the whole hospital holistically, rather than thinking about the systems in silos all the way from design and build. It also requires a cultural change – to embrace data use and the insights the analytics can bring. Once more, this does not need to affect your hospital ‘capex’; systems can be funded through performance-based contracts on cost savings, leaving important budget investment for clinical care.
For more information on how to make your hospital smart, visit siemens.co.uk/smarthospital, or come and see out our team on stand B33 at Healthcare
