Paris, 25 June 2024 – Kardham Digital, the first Digital Services Company (DSC) dedicated to the property industry and a subsidiary of the Kardham professional real estate group, is launching Smart Hospital, its smart building and smart workplace offering dedicated to healthcare facilities. With energy management of buildings based on usage, cyber-protection of buildings, data and users, and management and fluidity of all the paths taken by operators, carers, patients and visitors, Smart Hospital makes it possible to meet many of the expectations of these entities with regard to their facilities and running: economic and environmental performance, regulatory compliance, quality of life and humanisation. All in all, Smart Hospital offers a holistic, integrated, tailored and scalable approach to help the healthcare sector accelerate its digital transformation.

Digitalising and humanising healthcare facilities: a matter of urgency

With 70 million square metres of healthcare buildings in need of transformation*, digitising these establishments is an important step. Whether for public or private hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, medical centres, health centres, analysis laboratories, etc., this transformation, initiated by the government’s Ma Santé 2022 plan and the Feuille de route du numérique en santé 2019 – 2022 et 2023 – 2027, is crucial for a number of reasons.

Firstly, because it improves patient care by simplifying administrative assignments, streamlining processes and communicating more effectively in real time. At the same time, the healthcare sector, considered a vulnerable target, is one of the main victims of cyber attacks in France. By compromising the information systems of healthcare players, hackers can paralyse them and cause a leak of sensitive data as well as massive and therefore crippling disruption to their running. Since 2021, the French Ministry of Health estimates that the sector has suffered an average of one cyber-attack per week. Strengthening Information Technology security and better preparing healthcare facilities for crisis situations is therefore a priority, in addition to the various ministerial project contents and regulations such as NIS2, which aims to strengthen the resilience and security of the networks and information systems of these so-called “essential” entities.

Furthermore, it is not news that the healthcare sector, and in particular the hospital sector, is unattractive, marked as it is by serious labour shortages and burnout. The WHO estimates that there will be a shortage of 10 million healthcare professionals worldwide by 2030. Digitalisation is therefore one way of lightening the workload for practitioners and making the running of establishments as humane as possible.

Lastly, in a tight economic situation, with soaring energy costs, the focus is on reducing debt and controlling budgets, and the healthcare sector could make the quest for energy savings a central part of its digital transformation. In this respect, the French tertiary sector decree already imposes obligations on a large number of healthcare and medico-social organisations, which may be restrictive but are necessary if the sector is to move towards greener practices.

The healthcare establishment: a 24/7/365 operational service centre

The Smart Hospital offering developed by Kardham Digital covers the entire life cycle of smart building and smart workplace projects in health establishments: scoping, qualification, creation of the software architecture, deployment of solutions, commissioning and maintenance in operational conditions. Smart Hospital is a turnkey, tailor-made offer, adapted to the nature and activity of the organisation, to the evolution of its real estate assets and to the requirements of its users: patients, nursing staff, visitors and managers.

As is also the case in the service sector, the smart project is hinged around KD CONVERGENCE, a core component of the building’s digital architecture.

This central platform is responsible for converging, processing and redistributing all the data used to optimise the operation of the building and ensure that the services provided to operators and occupants run smoothly, so that they interact as a coherent whole in real time.

KD CONVERGENCE is the single repository for the building(s) and feeds the hospital’s digital twin, which is essential for meeting the challenges of data reliability and responsiveness in this sensitive environment.
This data includes both statistical data (spaces, models, equipment, etc.) and ‘real-time’ data (systems data, information systems data, usage data, etc.), which can be used to feed applications and meet the expectations of a smart hospital, with better care for users, better monitoring of equipment, a high-quality environment, better control of consumption, and so on.

Around KD CONVERGENCE, Smart Hospital is also deploying customisable smart workplace solutions such as the KD UNIFY digital application, which brings together all the services available to facilitate the entire patient/visitor/caregiver journey: resources available to users (waiting rooms, meeting rooms, car parks, etc.) or resources linked to their comfort (lighting, presence, blinds, heating, air conditioning, ventilation, air quality, temperature, etc.). Using connected objects (IoT), KD UNIFY provides a solution to the problems of orienting and locating frail patients or tracking medical equipment.

Smart Hospital also offers the KD SIGNAGE digital signage management solution, which enables the creation, management and distribution of multimedia content on screens.

Building security is further enhanced by the KD SENTINELLE CyberSOC, a holistic control centre – both preventive and curative – for protection against cyber attacks, which is the result of combining Kardham Digital’s expertise in building control with that of Wallix Group in dealing with cyber threat.

Finally, Smart Hospital is a hypervision and monitoring solution – KD COCKPIT – which offers control of all building data, providing a real-time overview of technical systems and equipment. This centralisation makes it easier to manage building operations, even in the event of a breakdown, so that the establishment can continue to provide the high level of service 24/7/365 that is expected of these vital infrastructures. It also facilitates the modelling of the building’s running and flows, thereby contributing to its greater predictability and autonomy.

« The subjects of smart buildings and smart workplaces are only just beginning to emerge in the healthcare sector, which is regularly the target of cyber attacks. Now, more than ever, these infrastructures need to accelerate on the road to digitalisation. A healthcare establishment must first and foremost be seen as a service centre and, as such, it is only by digitising its infrastructure that it will be possible to improve its economic, environmental and operational performance. Patients, carers and visitors must be able to move around in spaces that, while still anxiety-provoking, absolutely need to be made more personal, more fluid and simpler. Smart Hospital is a response to this ambition to make healthcare establishments’ journeys and running more human », Pascal Zératès, Managing Director of Kardham Digital

*Source : Ademe (november 2020)