Very few places can make better use of accurate, high-fidelity, real-time information than a hospital operating room (OR). From endoscopic camera video to vital-sign monitoring to electronic medical records (EMRs) containing recent scans—OR staff needs instant access to as much relevant data as possible to make quick, life-saving decisions during surgery. And with today’s technology, integrating all of that on a single display inside the operating room shouldn’t be much of a challenge.
But unfortunately, it is. Technology advancement is limited in hospital ORs by a supplier ecosystem driven by a few large OEMs and their proprietary technologies. Since these manufacturers are responsible for the vast majority of OR equipment today—everything from endoscopic cameras and operating tables to HVAC and lighting systems—they can package highly-integrated, total OR solutions that are expensive and don’t work well with other vendors’ systems.
This vendor lock-in makes adding technology that’s commonplace in other markets resource intensive, time consuming, and cost prohibitive for hospital ORs. As a result, hospital administrators are often forced to upgrade one or two of their ORs at a time through one of the leading vendors or, in many cases, not upgrade any of them at all.
Al Moosa Specialist Hospital, a leading health center in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, faced a similar compromise when trying to implement new, entry-level, “smart operating room” infrastructure. It looked outside traditional channels for help.
This article originally appeared on insight.tech written by BRANDON LEWIS, click the link to read the full story.
