6 reasons hospitals use independent communication networks
Hospitals rely on their communication services, sharing vital information at all hours.
Our hospital customers engage us to manage radio paging networks such as the Health Interior Radio Paging Network (Sydney), and Health Paging Service (Adelaide). These are six key reasons why health authorities continue to own private networks.
1. Avoiding 3rd-party outages
It can be inescapable that when relying on networks provided by third parties, that outages will occur.
In November 2023 the Optus network went down for several hours. Any customer using their services for mobile phones, including SMS, or as their Internet Service provider, was simply without access. Just over a year prior, a similar incident occurred in Canada, with major telco Rogers going offline.
While this might be an inconvenient disruption for a small business who can’t utilise their EFTPOS system, in healthcare, communication outages can be catastrophic.
2. Managing software updates
Software updates are a routine part of maintaining any technology. However, when this is managed externally to the hospital’s influence, they can lose control of what happens during the process.
The recent example of the July 2024 CrowdStrike incident where an update to a small part inside global networks caused millions of systems to crash and be unable to restart, leading to critical disruption in many industries.
In some instances, software needs to be offline to deploy updates, much like your personal computer applying latest updates after restarting.
If either such scenario happens for a hospital’s communication network, either unplanned consequences or updates at an unscheduled time, patient wellbeing could be placed at risk.
By managing a private network, hospital leaders have much more control over how and when the system is maintained.
3. Speed of transmission
In any critical situation, seconds matter. In a hospital, this could be a Code Blue call, to summon clinical staff to a patient in medical distress.
Because a private network is deployed on-site, the time from dispatching a critical message to receiver alerting can be mere seconds.
In contrast, when sending an SMS or text message, the hospital might be at the mercy of external factors such as network congestion. Data may not be able to be prioritised to push critical alerts first, and a clinician initiating a text message may not be able to easily group all necessary recipients. The private radio paging network is established to ensure broadcast in just a few seconds, traffic prioritised to deliver crucial missives first, and sent to everyone who needs that information at once.
4. Control over data security
Managing the system internally means control over security policies, and their implementation.
The health industry needs to maintain the highest degree of data security, given it is the most appealing targets for cyber cybercrime. In October 2022 insurer Medibank was subjected to an attack, and in immediate response needed to take multiple systems offline.
Further reports suggested that cyber criminals may have accessed as much as 200GB of patients’ medical information, and were holding it for ransom.
By operating a private network, another avenue of risk is better managed. Radio paging networks can also be encrypted, to further secure them from unauthorised access.
5. Plan and direct coverage
Within buildings, poor signal coverage can occur due to many variables. This could be installation of energy efficient windows, or the construction of new buildings nearby with concrete and rebar. More unique to hospitals, there are areas within the building specifically shielded, such as imaging and radiology departments. As more government investment is delivered for health network infrastructure, this will continue to be a concern for hospital communication systems.
Using an external network for critical communications means relying on third parties to ensure signal coverage is adequate. As equipment ages, or the environment changes, you would need to petition a commercial service provider to invest in their network.
Contrastingly, by managing a private radio messaging system, you can conduct hyper-localised signal strength surveys, and upgrade or replace parts of a distributed antenna system, and always deliver unbroken coverage for your team.
6. Integration opportunities
Commercial networks are generally discrete and standalone offerings. There may be limited availability to integrate directly into them, requiring additional steps to get your software or infrastructure connected to the communications system.
With the drive towards healthcare interoperability, these additional steps mean additional points of potential failure, as well as investment complexity.
With a private paging network, Ikonix Technology’s hospital partners ingest data from other systems – the building management system, pharmacy refrigeration, patient flow and nurse call systems – and can broadcast alerts, to keep a complex organisation running smoothly. This is achieved using our Message Integration Engine, Ikonix Messenger.
