7 early warning signs

that your network isn’t

ready for real-time
healthcare
Action Plan for Network Specialists
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Early warning signs are your cue to act

Digitalization is disrupting every corner of the healthcare

sector. As a network expert, you understand the pressures
this places on your infrastructure better than anyone.

You are being confronted with major technology changes,

from electronic health records (EHRs) and digital clinical
communications to data analytics, content management,
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Artificial Intelligence (AI),
digital twins and the cloud.

The sheer quantity of sensitive data now stored in silos across

the average healthcare infrastructure is breathtaking - and
the growth of facilities as health systems expand and make
acquisitions is adding to your challenges.
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The chances are that you’re being

actively tasked with moving and
securing more data than ever
before and helping to realize the
benefits of digitalization to deliver
more of what the business needs.
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A new set of capabilities in your IT infrastructure will be needed

as your organization moves toward a real-time business model:

Mobility is critical between clinicians, equipment

and devices and contributes to better coordinated
and optimized workflows and real-time access to
patient information.

Awareness to provide visibility into important

patient-related activities and event data to
access the most recent and informed patient
context to satisfy revenue, cost, quality and
patient experience expectations.
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Collaboration enabled across in-patient,

out-patient and home care settings to share
information in real time to improve outcomes
and lower the cost of care.

Automation and intelligence capitalizing on

situational awareness and effective prioritization
of resources and actions.

Adaptive and agile to deploy resources and

capabilities for the most impactful use.

But what about your network?

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Is it really ready to deal with the demands of

real-time healthcare or is it struggling?

We believe there are 7 clear Healthcare generates 30% of the world’s

“early warning” signs which alert you that data and is forecast to grow at 36%
the time has come to shift to an intelligent, by 2025, faster than any other industry.
agile, cloud-enabled architecture across
compute, storage and software. Source: The Convergence of Healthcare and Technology

Read on to see which symptoms – if any – your network is exhibiting

and what you can do to address each challenge you face.
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1
Innovation lags
Do you have long lead times to
deploy new apps and services
in the data center?
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The challenge. Your CIO is focused on growing the

business by deploying new value-based services
that will drive up revenue and profit. But can you
deliver against this vision, cutting across data silos,
harnessing smart data insights and embracing
the potential of cloud, mobility, AI and robotics to
inspire a new generation of cutting-edge healthcare
applications? Or in reality, is app dev, testing and
rollout a slow and bumpy process?

The cure. You need a network that delivers

effortless scale and agility as standard, alongside
smart extras such as multi-dimensional analytics
to support and ensure uptime for critical apps.
Nokia can help you communicate what’s needed –
and why – to a non-technical business audience:
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Ruthlessly align. Achieve the clear communication,

collaborative approach and aligned strategic thinking
that’s critical to securing vital network investment.

Accelerate launch. Roll out a state-of-the-art network

able to support real-time care delivery, including the
ability to launch new apps and services at speed,
and even start industrializing innovation.

Embrace the cutting edge. Be supported to deliver

innovations such as remote and robot-assisted
surgery using distributed edge clouds that offer
essential ultra-low latencies.
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2
Inflexibility
Does your network struggle to
support both legacy and current workloads
and embrace upcoming workload formats?
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The challenge. Your network needs to keep pace

with technology change, giving you the tools to
easily roll out evolved new standards, practices
and processes which are sensitive to the different
ways that future applications will use the network,
depending on the type of service, data and user
interface. At the same time, you need to constantly
identify and pre-empt potential performance and
security issues across both your legacy kit and your
diverse new solution portfolio.

The cure. Merging multiple departments and objectives into a single, future-
proofed infrastructure roadmap will support continuous integration and ongoing
digital transformation, and help you achieve the clarity and credibility you need to
future-proof funding. Nokia experts can work closely with you to achieve all this:
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Get aware. Roll out application-aware

networking that lets your network adjust
automatically to new application types with
no compromise on scale or performance.

Adjust on the fly. Analyze network, service

and application performance in real time,
automatically scaling to meet changing patient
and clinician demands and cloud usage patterns.

Focus on what matters. Identify and prioritize

availability for mission-critical apps across an
increasingly complex application stack.
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3
Constant
bandwidth boosts
Do you regularly receive new requests
and requirements for bandwidth upgrades
that you’re unable to rapidly meet?
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The challenge. As processes digitalize, medical

imaging file sizes increase and the IoT brings
thousands of new medical devices and sensors,
healthcare enterprises are generating, handling
and storing larger volumes of data than ever
– stretching the capabilities of your existing IT
infrastructure. These pressures are heightened by
growing patient demands for digital connectivity
and the launch of services like remote healthcare
monitoring, which introduce new scalability and
capacity challenges.

The cure. You need to make scaling on demand simple – effortlessly supporting business
and clinical teams with easy network flex and crafting the intelligent, connected healthcare
processes your patients expect. There are lots of ways that Nokia readies your network for
real-time excellence and data growth:
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Unify once and for all. Data center automation

supports you to change network-based services
on demand using simple unified configuration
management tools, making your infrastructure
highly adaptable and responsive to business intent.

Think dynamic. Cloud data center interconnection

gives you a scalable, reliable and secure way to
connect data centers in private/hybrid clouds and
provision resources dynamically across boundaries.

Do IoT smarter. Intelligently integrate device management,

data collection and subscription management to offer
a simple IoT management approach that lets you rapidly
connect up new devices for a lower cost.
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4
Network security
Are you anxious about how to handle
the growing number and increasing
sophistication of network attacks?
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The challenge. Cyber criminals have healthcare

organizations in their sights. In particular, there is an
urgent need to protect sensitive patient data, mission-
critical healthcare processes and the IoT devices that
monitor patients and medical equipment from today’s
highly complex network threats, including DDoS, illegal
fiber tapping, data theft and network destruction.
Malware and viruses can infect healthcare systems
laterally or east to west within the perimeter of the
network. That puts extreme pressure on network
infrastructure and the people like you who are
responsible for managing it.

The cure. The most successful real-time healthcare systems are powered by an IP and
optical network with smart analytics, optical fiber data encryption, intrusion detection and
fault monitoring built in, able to identify applications and services in the moment as they
transit the network and hybrid cloud deployments. Automated software-defined security
measures can be programmed against each medical application segmenting it from the
rest of the network resources. It’s time to get your network ready and Nokia can help you
put everything you need in place:
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See it all. The common policy framework delivered

by a software-defined network helps you lock down
network-wide security. Dynamic, insight-driven IP
analytics from Nokia can help you identify, detect
and protect devices, data and users across the
network against attacks. Using our security portfolio,
you’ll be able to see how applications and services
are performing against their SLAs in real time.

Layer up insight. Leverage multi-dimensional

views to help you quickly spot and shut down DDoS
attacks. Utilize quantum-safe optical line encryption
and key management to protect against the most
sophisticated of data thieves.
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Avoid budget waste. Secure the network in a timely

way, without the unwelcome extra cost of dedicated
security appliances. Software-defined security
techniques apply security policies only on the
applications that are programmed to release these
measures at the end of the applications lifecycle.
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5
Compliance
complexities
Are you struggling to audit and prove
network compliance with legal and industry
standards?
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The challenge. HIPAA-compliant security and

encryption that protects the confidentiality of
patient data and EMR systems is a non-negotiable.
Yet delivering security at the granular level required
– and then proving that with clear audits and
reports – can sap all the cost-efficiencies that
digital transformation offers.

The cure. Rearchitecting your healthcare network gives you a secure, programmable
and automated network in which to innovate and run critical healthcare applications,
protecting confidential patient data and helping you meet regulatory and
compliance requirements head on:

No more compromise. Remove the limitations of

traditional VPNs, enjoying centralized management
and policy-based control of network services tailored
to the individual requirements of your business,
alongside increased network-wide visibility.
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Isolate what matters. Deliver smart traffic

engineering, controlling bandwidth, separating
inter- and intra-site traffic and keeping sensitive
patient data apart from general data for
regulatory or compliance reasons.

Hammer down cost. Seriously reduce the costs

associated with compliance and auditing.
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6
Stalled ecosystem
growth
Do you have long deployment times for
rolling out new medical facilities, like small
doctor’s offices and new cancer centers?
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The challenge. You’re tasked with rapidly spinning up what’s

needed by the business – new offices, new workloads, new
home users, new mobile healthcare (mHealth) services – as
quickly and cost-effectively as possible. But too often, the
time and cost of making the necessary network changes
stand in the way of rolling out new services.

The cure. You need the support of a network architecture that can make your
infrastructure adaptive and responsive, offering affordable scale, open connectivity
and simple configuration with unified configuration management tools:
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Open up. The Nokia software-defined networking

approach leverages open interfaces to provide an
automated, centralized way of provisioning network
resources – minimizing the time and cost burden
associated with enabling connectivity.

Automate the tough stuff. By automating many

of the functions involved in managing network
equipment, security policies and compliance, we
simplify keeping pace with regulatory and security
requirements as your ecosystem expands.
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7
Vendor lock-in
Are you prevented from deploying the
best-in-class solutions you want in
order to deliver the innovation you need?
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The challenge. Some network vendors lock you in, so you

don’t just have the limitations of enterprise-grade network
architectures to worry about. You’re also prevented from
innovating and building out your service and applications
portfolio your way, partnering with best-of-best innovators
and healthcare pioneers to help you lead in your market
and transform patient experiences.

The cure. Say no to solutions and approaches that limit your thinking,
your partnerships and your potential for innovation excellence.
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Build your future, your way. Nokia networks have

open APIs, meaning you’re able to interface and
build out your application stack however you choose,
freeing your organization to share, communicate and
collaborate to deliver real-time, value-based care
with the partners you choose.

Demand carrier-grade. We also offer an agile,

carrier-grade infrastructure that’s ready for
anything today and able to cost-efficiently
evolve to support new service models tomorrow.
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The best cure is talking.

Nokia has a team of healthcare network specialists ready to deploy a portfolio of tried and
tested solutions to combat worrying network symptoms and fast-track your network to
real-time excellence: adaptive, aware, patient-centric. We have built our reputation
designing and deploying networks for the world’s biggest telecommunications companies
and the most mission-critical industry sectors including railways, power utilities, public
safety and defense, delivering ultra-reliable performance with sub-second failovers to
safeguard even the most life-critical applications:

Handle massive amounts of data securely

and to cost-efficiently scale.

Support the easy expansion and launch of new

digital apps and services to grow revenue.
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Reuse legacy architecture while embracing EMR

workloads to deliver a high quality of service.

Protect sensitive data with smart “security by

design” including encryption key management
and intrusion detection.

Automate regulatory compliance across the

healthcare ecosystem with granular visibility
and control.

Enable collaboration and real-time clinical insight with

adaptive and aware network features, easing workloads.
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Want to
continue the
conversation?
If you like what you see, simply get
in touch with the team and let’s talk.

Visit our website

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Tel. +358 (0) 10 44 88 000
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nokia.com

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