Smart hospitals: Are we ready?

Medical Plastics News editor Laura Hughes asks: Are we ready for smart hospitals?

As medical device company Medtronic hits the headlines for all of the wrong reasons, the security of medical devices is again put in to question.

The company withdrew 11 versions of its MiniMed insulin pumps following the revelation that a hacker could change the settings of a pump to over- or under-deliver insulin to a patient through a wireless connection. These potential modifications could result in serious complications such as diabetic ketoacidosis, and high or low blood sugar levels for the patient.

As we look towards a paperless and thus, more digital future within healthcare, setbacks like this raise big questions about how ready we are for the implementation of more digital devices within the sector.

Mobile applications such as Forward – a new mobile messaging app for doctors and nurses -  and Silo – a similar application - aim to replace outdated tech like pagers and fax machines, still widely used in clinical settings. Forward claims to offer a user friendly, secure messaging service, while Silo states it is 100% confidential. However, what was really wrong with using a pager? The advantages are numerous, but crucially they don’t drop out if the WiFi goes on the blink. New tech though is always good – but like any capital investment, it comes with risk.

Adopting tech also costs a lot of money – the training, the time and work needed to update documents such as standard operating procedures, and the cost of the devices themselves, just to name a few of the things involved. The implementation of new processes also causes issues, which are often not fully known or realised until the technology is integrated within a workplace.

Other futuristic devices being adopted at pace – things like surgical robots and 3D printers – also find themselves part of the connected healthcare ecosystem. Data file transfers to a 3D printer, for example, could put that particularly expensive piece of equipment at risk of unintended harm. While patients wouldn’t necessarily be affected in this case, a virus or piece of malware intended for the wider system could result in a bricked 3D printer - a huge financial hit and disruptive in terms of downtime. It doesn’t harm the patient, but indirectly, it does harm the patient.

Smart hospitals are becoming a reality. But at a time when the sector is already on the receiving end of some bad publicity (think The Implant Files, the mesh scandal, and The Bleeding Edge), Medtronic’s latest recall is something the industry could’ve done without. Instead of the scaremongering headlines reported in the national press, a more reasoned, ‘thank God they caught it before it happened’ approach, would’ve been more helpful.