Smart hospitals need to think, sense and act

There is a pressing need for greater understanding of what an intelligent hospital is and what it can do to deal with the rising demand for high quality medical service and the aging population in China, a report said.

Based on a survey of nearly 1,200 respondents from patients, doctors and nurses, operation staff and hospital management teams, Johnson Controls proposed a new interpretation and methodology for building and upgrading the intelligent hospitals of the future, to further help improve healthcare services in China.

In response to the diverse needs and the lack of consensus on intelligent hospitals, the Intelligent Hospital White Paper suggested intelligent hospitals should be able to think, sense and act.

"In the new era, hospitals that only have 'thinking' ability (IT software) may no longer meet the growing healthcare needs. 'Intelligent hospitals' should also be able to 'sense' surroundings in real-time and make corresponding actions automatically, to meet people's needs," said Gene Sun, healthcare vertical market leader of Asia-Pacific, Johnson Controls.

Chinese people's medical and healthcare expense increased 11 percentage points to 7.9 percent of their total expenditure in 2017. In the meantime, the number of people aged at and above 60 years old reached 241 million in 2017, accounting 17.3 percent of Chinese population. Introducing technologies of Internet, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence is an inevitable solution to improve the medical service.

Lack of top-level design standards and system incompatibility is impacting the development of intelligent hospitals, said the whitepaper, which suggests that real progress can be made if industry comes together around a common view of the future of intelligent hospitals and promotes a clear vision of the way forward.

Johnson Controls has already offered intelligent hospital related technologies and solutions to hundreds of medical institutions across China, according to Sun.