Leveraging a hosted solution to enhance hospital operations

• Hosted solutions offer immediate access to smarter, faster clinical communication for hospitals with easy installation and rapid deployment.
• Adopting a hosted solution allows hospitals to significantly reduce costs compared to maintaining an on-premises IT infrastructure, enabling efficient allocation of financial resources.
• Hosted solutions prioritize security and data protection, ensuring compliance with industry regulations like HIPAA and maintaining patient privacy and confidentiality. They also facilitate seamless collaboration and business continuity during unforeseen events or disasters.

In the digital age, hospitals increasingly rely on advanced technologies to streamline operations, improve patient care, and enhance overall efficiency. Hosted solutions stand out as a notable innovation gaining significant traction in the healthcare industry. These platforms offer a range of benefits to hospitals, revolutionizing their workflows and enabling them to deliver better patient outcomes. They deliver the right information quickly and securely into the hands of care team members who need to respond. 

With 46 million Americans currently relying on rural health systems to meet their medical needs, a Q1 2024 study from Black Book Research found that 87% of hospital administrators with less than 50 beds cannot afford new or replacement technology due to poor financial health and unavailable resources. Hosted solutions are especially beneficial for these organizations, offering access to powerful clinical communication and collaboration (CC&C) platforms remotely with a simple, recurring subscription plan that integrates with existing systems.  

Why choose a hosted solution?

Many smaller and rural hospitals are eager to implement new technology such as CC&C solutions, but often lack the necessary resources. A hosted solution provides clinicians and operators immediate access to smarter, faster clinical communication wherever they are with easy installation and rapid deployment upon sign-up. Hospitals and healthcare organizations can seamlessly adapt to these modern and more efficient platforms by partnering with a company that remotely maintains its server. Typically licensed in a subscription model, hosted solutions can be feature-rich with predefined integration and configuration options and controls, greatly reducing a hospital’s IT burden.

Cost savings

Managing and maintaining software systems can cost up to 64% of IT budgets, so many hospitals can’t afford to do everything on-premises anymore. Adopting a hosted solution offers hospitals significant cost savings compared to maintaining an on-premises IT infrastructure and server footprint and removes the need for upfront capital and/or start-up fees. By eliminating the need for expensive hardware purchases, regular maintenance, and upgrades, hospitals can allocate their financial resources more effectively. Additionally, the subscription model of hosted solutions allows organizations to optimize costs based on their specific needs, ensuring efficient resource allocation.

Advancement in healthcare security

Hospitals and healthcare systems work with a tremendous amount of data, and even the most sophisticated hardware installations can’t do it all. For a hospital seeking a reliable and secure communication method, hosted solutions prioritize security and data protection—both critical aspects for hospitals dealing with sensitive patient information. Companies that host your information invest heavily in robust security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular data backups. These measures help hospitals maintain compliance with industry regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), ensuring patient privacy and confidentiality.

Collaboration, accessibility, and business continuity

Hosted solutions facilitate seamless collaboration among healthcare professionals, allowing them to access patient data and medical records from any location with an internet connection. This quick access improves communication and coordination among healthcare teams, leading to more efficient diagnoses, treatment plans, and overall patient care. Hospitals must ensure continuous operations even in the face of unforeseen events or disasters. Hosted solutions also offer disaster recovery mechanisms, including data replication and backup solutions. In case of a system failure or outage, hospitals can quickly recover their data and resume operations, minimizing potential disruptions to patient care.

Hosted solutions are revolutionizing the healthcare industry by empowering hospitals to optimize operations, reduce costs, and enhance patient care. The scalability, cost savings, security, collaboration, and disaster recovery capabilities provided by hosted solutions have a profound impact on hospitals’ efficiency and effectiveness. As technology continues to advance, a hosted solution enables hospitals and healthcare systems to stay at the forefront of delivering high-quality patient care.

Contact the Spok team to learn more about how the Spok Care Connect® hosted solution can help your hospital access the power of Spok applications remotely with a simple, recurring subscription plan to provide your clinicians immediate access to smarter, faster clinical communication.  

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2023 and has been updated for relevancy and accuracy.