FM Perspectives: Healthcare faces 'digital' hurdles
This year's conference on Swiss healthcare "FM Perspectives" at the Institute of Facility Management at the ZHAW focused on the topic of "Digital Communication Innovations in Health Care". The symposium provided insights into numerous research papers on explosive research questions around the areas of control, process optimization, efficiency and quality improvement.
The topic of rapidly growing digitalization also affects the Swiss healthcare sector. Its effects and demands on communication interested over 110 managers from hospitals and homes, from the economy and from consulting firms, who were informed about the latest developments at the ZHAW in Wädenswil on 5 April. Staff from the ZHAW Facility Management in Health Care (FM in HC) research group and project partners from other universities provided information on upcoming, current and recently completed application-oriented projects.
In his presentation entitled "In the digital jungle: Where do we stand between technical maturity, social acceptance and readiness for change?", David Bosshart from GDI in Rüschlikon impressively outlined the challenges ahead. He underlined the dynamics of change, the new opportunities, but also the challenges for management and employees. Finally, he outlined options for action in order to be prepared for the future.
AAL, retirement facilities and outpatient care
When a new retirement and care facility is built, the topic of digitalization also comes into focus. Those responsible ask themselves the question: Which technologies will residents, employees and family members need and use in the future? Thus, the need for a digital corporate strategy, the right mobile replacement solution in times of reconstruction and the question of data management from the perspective of facility management were debated in the parallel session. In other exciting contributions from practice and research, the speakers presented digital solutions from the areas of patient emergency call, safety and security, along with platforms for better integration of local and regional players in elderly care.
Everyone agreed that there is a need for better user involvement, that technology introduction and change management should go hand in hand, and that communication between the players will also change with the new technological possibilities. Across everything, it became clear that facility managers must actively shape and anticipate the digital transformation, that in addition to the new competencies, clarification of responsibilities is particularly needed at the beginning.
Digital transformation in hospitals
In another parallel session, researchers from the Institute for Facility Management IFM and participating external partners presented various digital projects in the hospital sector: for example, the identification of hospital germs using machine learning, the visualization of FM services, and set-up using artificial intelligence,
new office working environments in hospitals or studies on digitalisation and its impact in hospital catering, what efficient communication can achieve and how sourcing can lead to a win-win situation for all parties involved. All topics clearly demonstrated the digital transformation and the increasingly emerging automation with its effects. In the coming months, some of these projects will be worked on further and will then be made available to practitioners.
Workshops on facility management in the healthcare sector
In the second part of the conference, participants were actively involved in the future design of facility management in healthcare. For example, there were workshops on digitalization and strategy development, on communication innovations and their effects, on the future way of communication in management and on the growing challenges in the area of security in hospitals and homes. Questions were many, such as "How are the innovations in communication behaviour visible?" or "How much monitoring and control do we want to increase security?".
