Innovation & Collaboration In The Healthcare Industry

At Altera, we pride ourselves on our ability to connect clients with the solutions for their needs. Our clients that operate organizations within the healthcare industry have specific needs, and computational resources such as storage and bandwidth are in high demand. Zayo is a company that partners with mobile technology companies to determine the architecture of 5G networks, which ensures that those within healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceutical industries can rely on a strong mobile foundation when they need it. Unsung “heroes” like Zayo make not just extraordinary tasks but daily ones possible.

Healthcare Industry

Meeting the Healthcare Industry’s IT Needs Through Collaboration

While not everyone understands how the mobile landscape and healthcare providers work together, Zayo does. They partner with over 950 healthcare providers, which gives them an inside glimpse into the infrastructure needs of hospitals and clinics. Among Zayo’s roster are engineers and consultants who are experts in the healthcare sector. They see where networks become congested and traffic slows to a crawl, requiring more time for requests. When it comes to life-saving treatment, however, time is of the essence. Zayo’s vice president Chris Parra compares the services his company provides to healthcare providers as triage. Zayo determines which needs must be prioritized at the moment and which large-scale infrastructure changes can prevent congestion from happening in the future.

Those future plans often include moving away from local or traditional storage to cloud solutions that healthcare providers can access from nearly any device, anywhere. COVID-19 has highlighted the need for collaboration between those at every level within an organization, and that collaboration often looks different than just twelve months ago. However, healthcare providers must work with those from the biotech and pharma industries as well to serve their patients. Zayo continues with the theme of collaboration by working with partners and clients to implement the most effective infrastructures to keep that communication flowing.

However, Zayo can also work with organizations to design technological solutions outside of current communication and IT needs that will truly revolutionize the healthcare industry. Consider how much information providers might be able to glean from sensors rather than relying on patient reports or traditional imaging alone.

One thing that Chris and the staff at Zayo appreciate is that innovation cannot come before customer service or the people who need those services. And in healthcare, it’s the patients who are most valuable. If so-called innovative processes lead to network bottlenecks or insecure data, how valuable is that innovation? Companies like Zayo can paint a picture for their clients that clearly depicts where innovation is needed without going overboard.

The Importance of IT Security

Healthcare providers not only need to access information at the click of a mouse, but they need to ensure that information is secure, especially in the age of COVID-19 when so many employees now work remotely, many patients communicate with their providers from the safety of their homes, and some providers may be working from field locations. In fact, the entire field of telehealth has seen exponential growth over the past few months.

However, security has been a pressing issue long before our current pandemic. For example, one 2016 found that data breaches impacted the records of 17,000 patients per day on average. And those breaches have a hefty price tag: $6.2 billion per year. It’s no wonder that almost half of the American population has concerns over their healthcare data security. Zayo partners with providers to find solutions that are not only effective but secure as well. Don’t let those numbers scare you, however. Companies like Zayo have helped thousands of healthcare providers create reliable and secure technology infrastructures to support the provider’s needs and, by extension, the needs of healthcare patients.

Zayo is just one of the companies that we at Altera Solutions can connect clients with to meet their IT needs, whether those needs are ongoing or only temporary. Sometimes our clients may not know which IT services or companies offer the most appropriate solutions for their needs, and we can guide them in the right direction. This allows our clients to focus on providing stellar customer service, whether that means caring for patients or something else, and not the frustrations of IT “solutions” that create more problems than they solve.

For more information about our IT services or partners such as Zayo, contact Altera Solutions today.