Why our ageing population is increasing the pressure on connected devices

Mark Homer, senior vice president of corporate development and head of global customer transformation for software company, ServiceMax, explains why field service technologies will be key to delivering zero downtime and machine compliance.

According to the UN’s World Population Ageing 2019 report, there were 703 million people aged 65 years or over in the world in 2019 - a three percent increase since 1990. It’s no secret that the number of older people in the general population is growing. The number is projected to double to 1.5 billion in 2050 ,and this will almost certainly mean a greater demand on healthcare services. While rising costs and changing patient demographics are already affecting hospitals and clinics, there is also a demand for more personal medical services, with healthcare at the heart of proposed smart city initiatives.

The problem this creates is that there will be more devices and machines than ever before in operation, with more people than ever relying on their ability to always work. According to Deloitte, this demand for connected devices is both a blessing and curse. On the one hand, this connectivity – or the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) as it’s been dubbed – is enabling greater personalisation and efficiencies, but on the other hand it is widening the responsibility in terms of machines and devices to manage. More machines mean more chance of downtime, even failure.

These machines and devices – everything from MRI scanners and x-rays through to surgical instruments, artificial joints and pacemakers – can be critical to care and according to Deloitte, they are going to grow significantly. In five years’, over sixty eight percent of devices will be connected compared to forty eight percent today. While the IoMT enables data generated from these devices to be shared, stored and analysed, it doesn’t necessarily help when it comes to keeping the machines on and working and being compliant with data regulations.

For that to happen, medical device and machine makers need to rethink how they manage the health of products. They need a comprehensive service execution management strategy that encompasses all devices and ensures that data is managed correctly. By using the IoT network to determine the health of machines in real time, manufacturers can start to use predictive maintenance tools to alert service teams before serious problems occur.

So how does this work? Field service management and asset service management tools can combine to monitor equipment through conditions monitoring - an automated service which constantly checks the condition of equipment. This analysis can predict potential failure quickly and alert service teams in real time to any potential problems. This differs from preventative maintenance strategies, which tend to use average or expected asset lifecycles to determine when to replace equipment.

What predictive maintenance really means for manufacturers is that service teams can receive intelligence on machines and devices to repair before they are despatched. This will ensure that the right people with the right skills and tools for the job are sent. This not only means machines and devices have a greater chance of zero downtime, it also reduces maintenance costs by making repair journeys and jobs more efficient. For service teams which have traditionally been a cost burden to companies, this will go a long way to helping them find opportunities for machine upgrades and service deals.

With reduced or zero downtime on equipment, manufacturers are more likely than ever to improve healthcare customer satisfaction and to win repeat business, turning service teams into potential profit centres. More importantly, the machines and devices on the network can continue to be optimised and achieve what they are designed to achieve, without interruption and impacting the health of patients.