In 1960, British physician Lord Taylor published an essay in The British Medical Journal titled “Hospitals of the Future,” in in which he predicted that the hospital of the future would need to adapt its infrastructure to changing medical needs and organize care around patients.

Since then, discussions about the hospital of the future have tended to focus on a wide array of technologies, such as intelligent patient rooms, automated records, telemedicine, robots, and remote surgery.

Don’t get me wrong: these technologies matter. However, when it comes to the hospital of the future, Taylor’s fundamental observation remains critical: The hospital of the future will be defined by how well those solutions are coordinated around the patient.

Many hospitals today operate with infrastructure and technology that have been built over decades. The technologies that keep the hospital operational, from clinical records, staffing platforms, and financial systems to supply applications, were purchased at different times to solve different problems, creating fragmented systems.

In my career as an interventional cardiologist and now as a technologist, I have seen hospital leaders wrestle daily with questions that seem routine—even mundane—but are critical to patient care. For example: Which beds are available and adequately staffed? Which patients could be discharged? Which operating rooms are likely to run late? Are the supplies for tomorrow’s procedures in stock? Has a payer approved the next stage of care? Does this patient need the MRI performed during their inpatient stay, or can it be safely scheduled as an outpatient?

In this fragmented reality, the challenge is integrating new technologies with the existing systems in a way that fits into existing workflows and allows hospitals to function as a coordinated institution.

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