Over the last 30 years the Hospital Authority (HA) has developed extensive digital health capabilities in the world class Clinical Management System (CMS) to support the delivery of high quality healthcare services. However the growing healthcare demands of an aging population, ever increasing complexity of modern healthcare delivery, and the rising expectations of the healthcare consumer pose significant challenges to HA in the coming years. The HA has embraced further digital innovation as vital to meeting this sustainability challenge, developing the Smart Hospital Strategy to take digital health in HA to the next level.
A host of technologies is at the heart of the Smart Hospital Strategy, including tele-care, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, Smart Ward, Smart Clinic and Command Centre technologies. Whilst technology is the key enabler, delivering the Smart Hospital is not just an IT project but a transformational process with changes to service delivery and workflows affecting staff across the spectrum. Three Hospitals (TSWH, TKOH and QEH) have been designated as Smart Hospital Pilots to allow us to develop and deploy a comprehensive suite of Smart Hospital products, so that these products can be enhanced and fine tuned prior to widespread deployment across HA.
The concepts of “Co-development” and “Co-delivery” are also key to the success of Smart Hospital. The close collaboration between Head Office IT&HI and their hospital colleagues will enable the development of products which are not only highly suitable to the needs of the front-line, but which are scalable and easily and rapidly deployable to the rest of HA.
