5 ways FirstNet helps healthcare providers

September 13, 2021

An emergency isn’t a single moment in time. After the initial crisis comes the aftermath; victims, families, and emergency personnel descend upon the hospital—all at the same time.

The hospital activates its emergency response plan and priority communication is key to life-saving trauma care. While the ER focuses on triage, administrators oversee care coordination between the ER, OR, radiology and various specialty departments. All hands are on deck.

It’s during these seconds that a healthcare organization’s communications network is most tested, while also being at its most vital. Traditional network architectures can struggle to support emergency services communications in these situations. This reality can be a significant challenge for medical personnel and IT staff alike.

Prioritizing communications for priority personnel

FirstNet®, the nationwide communications platform, provides reliable, highly secure, and prioritized network access for first responders and those who support them, including medical professionals in hospital settings.

Hospitals are finding FirstNet helps their medical personnel communicate so they can provide life-saving healthcare – especially when timing is critical.

Here are 5 ways FirstNet is helping healthcare providers:

1. Disaster Communication - When emergencies strike, networks can become congested. FirstNet provides eligible medical professionals access to the only  nationwide platform with always-on, 24-hours-a-day priority across voice and data, helping ensure that they have a dedicated lane of connectivity when they need it, never competing with commercial traffic. That’s unique in the industry and something they won’t get anywhere but on the FirstNet network.
   
   
2. Interoperability - Medical personnel on FirstNet can quickly share critical information to prepare for incoming patients. This means they can coordinate medical records, on-site images, and patient vitals between personnel fast, to deliver care quickly and efficiently.
   
   
3. Healthcare-focused applications – With the FirstNet App Catalog, FirstNet users have access to a catalog of FirstNet approved applications developed just for public safety, including healthcare.
   
   
4. Cybersecurity – FirstNet operates on a highly secure platform with redundancy and a dedicated Security Operations Center that monitors the network 24x7x365. This helps ensure communications are highly secure in the face of a constantly changing cyber threat landscape.
   
   
5. 24/7/365 support – FirstNet provides voice, text and data access to devices built for dynamic environments with innovative accessories to help both medical professionals in the field and in the hospital with dedicated technical support 24/7/365.
   

With more than 17,000 subscribing agencies with more than 2.5 million connections to FirstNet and counting, more hospitals and medical professionals are discovering how to use it to improve their operations and quality of care.

For more information on FirstNet, click here. Or, for more information on innovative healthcare solutions powered by emerging technology, take a look at our healthcare solutions page.