It at all times begins with a spreadsheet.
The emergency gentle goes out, the oxygen concentrator begins performing up, and someplace in a shared folder, somebody opens a bloated Excel file to log the difficulty — manually. Once more.
It’s 2025, and hospitals are nonetheless attempting to trace high-value medical property the identical method we tracked month-to-month bills in 2003. With each damaged ventilator or misrouted defibrillator, essential seconds are misplaced, and affected person outcomes are put in danger. Not as a result of the tech doesn’t exist — however as a result of the adoption doesn’t.
I’ve labored intently with groups who reside and breathe hospital operations — biomedical engineers, procurement heads, medical workers. What unites them isn’t inefficiency or negligence. It’s the sheer quantity of stress they’re below. And the truth that their instruments aren’t evolving quick sufficient to match it.
The invisible load
There’s a quiet heroism in hospital upkeep groups. They’re those guaranteeing infusion pumps don’t fail mid-operation, or that wheelchairs can be found when wanted. However most of the time, they’re working reactively.
They’ll’t predict failures as a result of their information lives in silos — throughout logbooks, WhatsApp chats, or outdated ERPs. With out centralized methods or AI-driven alerts, the “invisible work” stays invisible… till it turns into a disaster.
Tech isn’t a luxurious anymore
For years, hospital tech investments leaned closely towards diagnostic and remedy instruments — MRIs, robotic surgical procedures, telemedicine platforms. However the infrastructure that holds all of it collectively? Usually missed.
That’s starting to vary.
We’re now seeing curiosity in platforms that carry preventive upkeep, real-time asset monitoring, and data-driven decision-making below one digital roof. What was “future plans” have gotten survival methods — particularly in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, the place useful resource optimization isn’t simply sensible, it’s important.
Classes from the bottom
As soon as, throughout a website go to, a services supervisor confirmed me a closet of tagged, unused BP screens. “We didn’t know these had been working,” he mentioned. “We ordered new ones.”
That incident wasn’t uncommon — it was regular. Multiply that throughout 400+ beds, throughout a number of departments, and also you notice: the monetary loss is barely a part of the story. The true impression is patient-facing.
When hospitals don’t have the fitting tools in the fitting place on the proper time, care suffers. And that’s a tech downside. One we are able to remedy.
The shift we’d like
As healthcare professionals and digital leaders, we should push for methods that prioritize operational readability. The purpose isn’t to interchange people — it’s to assist them. To let engineers deal with saving lives, not chasing serial numbers.
Once we give our hospitals the instruments they deserve — predictive upkeep dashboards, sensible alerts, clear analytics — we’re not simply optimizing a course of. We’re preserving belief. And lives.
It’s time we appeared past the OT and the ICU. The following frontier of hospital transformation is within the basement, the hallway, the asset tracker that also wants somebody to replace it manually. Let’s repair that.
Picture: AndreyPopov, Getty Photographs
Sonali Mohanraj is a Digital Advertising Government at Proteger AI, the place she helps bridge the hole between frontline care and operational expertise by Vajra, the hospital asset intelligence platform. She has a deep curiosity for hospital tech and operational transformation, and she or he’s obsessed with telling tales that sit on the intersection of expertise and human conduct.
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