Life safety in the digital hospital: How POTS replacement reduces risk and complexity

Hospitals are in the business of reducing risk. From patients and life safety to the systems that enable doctors, nurses and staff to do their jobs, hospitals are designed with backup plans in mind.

For example, hospital x-ray rooms are designed with radiation containment in mind. It’s not just the architecture either, it’s the entire digital hospital. From cellular carriers to power and internet service providers, hospital IT often plans for what could go wrong.

All of this reduces risk, so why not also reduce the risks that exist from relying on copper infrastructure? Below, we’ll go over why a once reliable technology has now turned into a legacy of risk – and what to do about it.

POTS: From reliable to risky

Copper phone lines have been an essential piece of telecommunication infrastructure for over 100 years now. From the national rollout between 1890 and 1930, our phone systems and communication lines have been primarily powered by copper.

For good reason! Copper lines were reliable, and at the time an improvement over the original wiring used for telecommunication. Once the network was built and technology evolved, devices started to take advantage of this infrastructure.

Not just the phones in your home either. Copper lines were used for fire alarms, emergency elevator phones, nurse call backup lines, security cameras and, at the beginning of the internet era, DSL internet.

In the past several years, that’s changed. Thanks to the copper sunset, Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines have been left to stagnate as the FCC aggressively attempts to phase out the technology. Providers are no longer maintaining them, which means increased unreliability.

A hospital that pays so much attention to life safety in how it designs its rooms, how it takes care of its patients and how it makes sure critical healthcare devices are always up and running should treat important infrastructure like elevator phones, fire alarms and security cameras in the same way.

That risk not only includes having people and possible patients in harm’s way, trapped in an elevator, but regulatory risks as well:

• Liability: If your elevator phones aren’t working and the person trapped inside needs medical assistance, your establishment is open to lawsuits.
• Regulatory violations: Elevators must follow strict regulations like ASME A17.1, which require reliable, 24/7 communication with a battery backup. Subpar or unreliable lines result in a failed safety inspection.
• Brand damage: If your hospital has an elevator breakdown where someone couldn’t communicate, it’s very likely that story makes it out onto social media and damages your brand reputation.

Advanced healthcare systems, aging communication systems

Modern medicine is a marvel, and the amount of technology that exists in a hospital is truly a wonder. New hospitals are filled with advanced systems and equipment, all of it essential to making sure healthcare workers can practice life and safety.

The irony is that systems that rely on copper lines are aging in these same facilities. This infrastructure isn’t front of mind, and it isn’t exciting, frankly, which makes it easy to ignore or sweep under the rug.

It’s just as important and making it a priority of your IT program can save you a headache down the road. That’s because the longer you wait, the more likely you are to overpay due to the rising cost of POTS phone lines. If you’ve got a hospital with a number of devices relying on copper lines, these charges can add up fast and drain your IT budgets.

In the bills we’ve seen, business POTS lines can vary from $50 to $100 per line, with some extreme cases running up to $1,000 per line! With 73 percent of hospitals still using aging copper infrastructure and dozens of lines per hospital campus, that’s a lot of cost.

Observable infrastructure is the future

IT leaders need information. The more information, the better issues can get resolved. Copper phone lines provide no information. To check on them, you manually have to go to the location and see if they’re working and what condition they’re in.

If you’re remote or trying to quickly look at all your devices at the same time, it’s impossible. Compared to many devices that IT teams oversee, like modems, laptops, smartphones, and other communication devices, that’s a desert of information.

Observable information is a buffet in comparison. POTS replacement devices like Ooma AirDial make it easy to see vital information with Remote Device Management. This allows IT teams to get notifications whenever a device is offline, when backup power is enabled and also get a glance of all their devices in all locations from an easy-to-understand dashboard.

You can manage it all remotely, and if there’s an issue, you’re instantly alerted and can then go to fix it if you need to, saving precious time and eliminating unnecessary site visits for status checks.

Advanced infrastructure for advanced facilities

Your hospital is a beacon of life safety, a digital hospital working hard every day with cutting edge technology to save people’s lives. Your copper-based devices should get the same treatment.

POTS replacement devices like AirDial are reliable, using technology like MultiPath and a built-in LTE backup to make sure you’re always connected. With a battery backup, you won’t have to worry during a power outage either.

Remote Device Management not only brings you easy visibility into your devices but allows you to have simpler management from anywhere. All of this together makes POTS replacement for healthcare the perfect way to reduce risk and complexity.