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Network Visibility for the Delivery of Quality Healthcare

Michael Segal

Healthcare, in common with many other industries, is undergoing a significant digital transformation. As resources and purse strings become ever tighter, healthcare providers are becoming increasingly dependent on advancements in digital technology to enable them to do more with less.

The ability for healthcare practitioners and patients alike to securely access to electronic medical records (EMR) in real time, for example, not only improves an organization's operational efficiency, but can also enable more accurate diagnosis of a patient's condition, and inform their ongoing treatment plan.

Similarly, the introduction of e-prescriptions and the expansion of Wi-Fi connectivity throughout hospitals and doctors' surgeries have led to a reduction in administrative burden, freeing up frontline operatives to allow them to focus more on delivering high-quality services to their patients.

What's more, the ongoing adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), and the use of connected wearable devices in particular, has opened up new, innovative ways of monitoring patients' health and measuring the effect of their treatment.

However, while the health and efficiency benefits of this digital transformation are clear, it is having an impact on the IT networks that power today's healthcare providers. The increased complexity that comes with the introduction of these new technologies is responsible for performance issues and potential vulnerabilities, leading to a need for greater visibility into the data crossing these networks, and for a view of how better to manage the technology itself.

Protecting Patient Care

Healthcare providers never have a "typical" business day. Given the organic nature of a hospital, for example, where patients, staff and visitors are continuously moving in and out of the campus, and a wealth of different devices are being added and removed on an ongoing basis, the demand on its network and services will be unpredictable at best. It's vital, therefore, to have better insight into the performance of services across the network.

Protecting patient care in today's hyper-connected world largely depends on protecting and optimizing a healthcare provider's wired and wireless networks, and the services that run through them. Much of the functionality — the key services and applications — upon which healthcare organizations rely, tends to be multi-vendor, requiring IT teams to ensure that everything is working together without friction. Achieving visibility into this environment is complicated by the fact that these services will be running across both physical and virtualized environments as well as private, public and hybrid cloud environments, which only adds to the levels of complexity.

High Availability

While challenges around network complexity and multi-vendor, siloed technologies may not, at first glance, appear to have much bearing on delivering high-quality patient care, any issues with either the network or applications will have a knock-on effect. Delays in accessing information, for example, such as appointment times, medical images, diagnostic data or drug interactions, can have a negative impact on a patient's experience of the service.

Network downtime is a challenge for healthcare providers, even when it's scheduled. Problems can be further amplified when an outage is unscheduled due to an application error or a breach, especially when you consider that hospitals and health systems are currently being targeted by cybercriminals at a rate of almost one a day. With one in five healthcare organizations claiming to have at least 5,000 devices connected to its network, each of which represents an endpoint that could be exploited for criminal gain, any outage resulting from such an attack could potentially put patient lives at risk.

Healthcare providers will continue to adopt innovative new digital services in a bid to improve efficiency and quality. With each of these services dependent on high availability, not only to ensure the seamless delivery of care, but also the protection of patients, the need for network visibility and service assurance before, during and after their implementation has never been more critical.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

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In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

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In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

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Network Visibility for the Delivery of Quality Healthcare

Michael Segal

Healthcare, in common with many other industries, is undergoing a significant digital transformation. As resources and purse strings become ever tighter, healthcare providers are becoming increasingly dependent on advancements in digital technology to enable them to do more with less.

The ability for healthcare practitioners and patients alike to securely access to electronic medical records (EMR) in real time, for example, not only improves an organization's operational efficiency, but can also enable more accurate diagnosis of a patient's condition, and inform their ongoing treatment plan.

Similarly, the introduction of e-prescriptions and the expansion of Wi-Fi connectivity throughout hospitals and doctors' surgeries have led to a reduction in administrative burden, freeing up frontline operatives to allow them to focus more on delivering high-quality services to their patients.

What's more, the ongoing adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), and the use of connected wearable devices in particular, has opened up new, innovative ways of monitoring patients' health and measuring the effect of their treatment.

However, while the health and efficiency benefits of this digital transformation are clear, it is having an impact on the IT networks that power today's healthcare providers. The increased complexity that comes with the introduction of these new technologies is responsible for performance issues and potential vulnerabilities, leading to a need for greater visibility into the data crossing these networks, and for a view of how better to manage the technology itself.

Protecting Patient Care

Healthcare providers never have a "typical" business day. Given the organic nature of a hospital, for example, where patients, staff and visitors are continuously moving in and out of the campus, and a wealth of different devices are being added and removed on an ongoing basis, the demand on its network and services will be unpredictable at best. It's vital, therefore, to have better insight into the performance of services across the network.

Protecting patient care in today's hyper-connected world largely depends on protecting and optimizing a healthcare provider's wired and wireless networks, and the services that run through them. Much of the functionality — the key services and applications — upon which healthcare organizations rely, tends to be multi-vendor, requiring IT teams to ensure that everything is working together without friction. Achieving visibility into this environment is complicated by the fact that these services will be running across both physical and virtualized environments as well as private, public and hybrid cloud environments, which only adds to the levels of complexity.

High Availability

While challenges around network complexity and multi-vendor, siloed technologies may not, at first glance, appear to have much bearing on delivering high-quality patient care, any issues with either the network or applications will have a knock-on effect. Delays in accessing information, for example, such as appointment times, medical images, diagnostic data or drug interactions, can have a negative impact on a patient's experience of the service.

Network downtime is a challenge for healthcare providers, even when it's scheduled. Problems can be further amplified when an outage is unscheduled due to an application error or a breach, especially when you consider that hospitals and health systems are currently being targeted by cybercriminals at a rate of almost one a day. With one in five healthcare organizations claiming to have at least 5,000 devices connected to its network, each of which represents an endpoint that could be exploited for criminal gain, any outage resulting from such an attack could potentially put patient lives at risk.

Healthcare providers will continue to adopt innovative new digital services in a bid to improve efficiency and quality. With each of these services dependent on high availability, not only to ensure the seamless delivery of care, but also the protection of patients, the need for network visibility and service assurance before, during and after their implementation has never been more critical.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...