SD-WAN Edge for Healthcare – The right solution? - PDF document

SD - WAN Edge for Healthcare – The right solution? Most organizations are paving the path to digital transformation by adopting cloud - based services owing to their extreme reliability, performance, and security. There is visible advancement in Healthca re Wide Area Network (WAN) edge infrastructure since most organizations need to support more dynamic networks. According to Gartner, by the end of 2023, more than 90% of WAN edge infrastructure refresh initiatives will be based on virtualized customer prem ises equipment (vCPE) or Software - defined WAN (SD - WAN) appliances when compared to traditional routers. Traditional branch routers cannot sustain strong connections to support a sudden upsurge in network activity within or outside an organization. The use of SD - WAN solution resolves this crisis. Emerging networking trends, the desire to increase automation & agility, and the need to lower operational expenses have contributed to embracing SD - WAN and vCPE as the be st approach to manage network connectivity. SD - WAN is the right networking solution for healthcare organizations that have numerous locations and are remotely connected to multiple medical devices. Besides reliability and efficiency, the use of SD - WAN ens ures the transfer of sensitive patient data in a secure manner. During the pandemic, a drastic increase in network traffic was witnessed. Organizations that had adopted the advanced programmatic network approach fared well. SD - WAN help reroutes traffic and balance load to perform all - important healthcare applications effectively. SD - WAN and Edge in robotic surgeries Medical Robotics has been in use for decades. In the 1990s, Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning focused on voice - activated camera control functionalities. The next version of robots consisted of arms that surgeons could control from a computer terminal. Over the years, healthcare solutions have evolved and experienced continu ous advancement in handling remote operations, remote medication, online prescriptions, etc. But most surgeons complained about the absence of human touch, which makes precision cuts quite tricky. In recent years, robot creation and network connection evo lution has facilitated successful robotic surgery; doctors can now efficiently carry out medical procedures. Doctors have started using connected appliances and robotics to perform surgeries and scans. For this reason, network stability is of prime importa nce. Even a short period of network downtime could harm the patient’s health and even lead to death. Surgeons can easily operate robotic devices without any lags when operating inside the same area. But the pandemic has obligated medical professionals to t reat patients even from distant locations. This is when things get tricky and the availability of a steady network connection becomes crucial. By adopting 5G and edge computing, healthcare providers can achieve a high - performing network and application. S uccessful 5G distribution will require an automated WAN platform that offers the highest performance, like one delivered by SD - WAN. The SD - WAN platform can help connect and combine different compute edges to optimize the traffic and manage 5G cells. Impor tance of Security and Network Stability for Remote Robotic Surgery For a robotic medical procedure to succeed, the network connection must be absolutely steady and free from interruptions. Even the most advanced ML algorithm cannot achieve the required pa tient outcome without a stable connection. Hence, medical professionals operating from multiple locations must quit using traditional internet services and move to SD - WAN to perform unhindered procedures – even during local outages. Learn more at https://smoad.io/healthcare - solutions/