Why Structured Cabling Companies are Now Essential to Healthcare

As healthcare providers across the country continue to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) and as more innovative technology applications are finding their way into healthcare environments, there is a growing need for IT services in healthcare. In 2015, 82% of hospitals engaged in electronic exchanges of laboratory results, radiology reports, clinical summaries, and medication lists, as indicated by government records. Because cabling and IT professionals are needed to support the influx of new technological applications in hospitals, clinics, doctor’s offices, and other environments, structured cabling companies are now essential to healthcare providers and their facilities.

According to the 2016 Report to Congress on Health IT Progress, “The delivery and the efficiency of health care could be improved through stronger integration of an electronic health information infrastructure.” Structured cabling infrastructures and cabling networks now play an integral role in the quality of care given to patients and other healthcare recipients. There are many healthcare work areas that rely on structured cabling networks, requiring the specialized design, installation, and maintenance of such networks.

A Cabling Company Provides Reliable Cabling for Critical Healthcare Work Areas

Today’s patient service areas and waiting rooms may include computers, digital displays, and interactive patient interfaces. These areas are essential to everything from sprawling metropolitan medical centers and small rural doctor’s offices. A cabling network, sometimes combined with a wireless network, is required to transfer data from back office servers to these interfaces. That network must be reliable for easy access to patient data and to make patient check-in and self-service as efficient as possible.

Diagnostic centers, treatment centers, as well as operating rooms are now stocked with specialized equipment that healthcare providers use to conduct tests and administer care directly to patients. These devices often depend on structured cabling and other core networks to function properly and send data to other systems.

Service and support centers and facilities management departments also need access to data housed in other systems within healthcare facilities. In some cases, the long distances between these systems need to be overcome using installation techniques that only the most experienced cabling and IT companies can provide. In order to provide reliable support, cabling infrastructures need to be implemented correctly from the start. Continual support must be provided to maintain those systems, especially in the event that cabling must be routed out of doors or when facilities need to expand.

Emergency rooms, intensive care units, and urgent care centers are perhaps the most crucial work areas of any medical institution. Because over 90% of the urgent care centers in the U.S. use digital management systems, the reliability of structured cabling infrastructures, networks, and other IT applications must be guaranteed so that healthcare providers can administer care when it is needed most. To ensure that cabling infrastructures, security networks, paging systems, and other key IT fixtures will function properly, healthcare providers need a certified cabling company.

Trusting a Structured Cabling Company

Cabling infrastructures provide the secure transfer of patient data from various systems to critical work areas. As such, cabling infrastructures must be reliable, cost-effective, and built to last. They must, therefore, exceed government and industry standards, which is why healthcare providers need to rely on the expertise and experience of certified cabling companies above independent contractors and more traditional wiring professionals.

Structured cabling and IT companies partner with industry providers to use only the highest quality cabling and IT equipment, both for the purposes of installation and within the installations themselves. Cabling companies specialize in cabling design, installation, and management whereas traditional electrical wiring professionals do not. Additionally, independent contractors may not be able to install essential pieces of IT equipment or partner with healthcare providers in the long term to provide support and do maintenance.

In the end, a structured cabling company can do the same work, and more, for the same cost as other wiring professionals and independent contractors, making them the most reliable and cost-effective option available. In 2015, 40% of the healthcare providers in the U.S. reported increases to their IT budgets. As more and more critical technology makes its way into the healthcare system, healthcare institutions will need the solutions provide by cabling and IT professionals to help maintain it and keep it functioning.