Healthcare Network Innovation with NaaS and AI Part 1

Imagine seamlessly connected healthcare and public health networks, with individuals having open, easy access to their personal health information and provider-quality data that they can use to make informed decisions about their care. Also, imagine emergency responders and providers having immediate access to a patient’s full health record to offer informed guidance about care options. Finally, imagine public health authorities having complete, integrated population health data to make informed decisions about which programs to offer and emergency measures to take. Of course, this is not reality today, but the future holds promise.  

In 2023, we offered a series of articles on Connected Healthcare, discussing how Network as-a-Service (NaaS) could help move us toward this dream. We started our series discussing what NaaS is and how it fits into a healthcare network reference architecture. We progressed on to discuss current network technologies and healthcare use cases they could enable. Then we ended our series mentioning a number of future technologies on the horizon for healthcare, including Artificial Intelligence (AI). Well, a lot of technological advances took place in 2024–incredible advances, especially with AI – and we believe this warrants an update to our series, as well as an expansion into the broader world of public health. 

AI and advanced networking technologies offer such awesome possibilities to overcome some of our greatest challenges in healthcare and public health, like…  

• Equity across demographic categories and geographies 

• Stewardship across programs and beneficiaries 

• Emergency preparedness across population and environmental changes 

• Data integration across disparate devices and systems 

• Data security across supply chains and users 

In this update to our series, we will explore these possibilities, starting with the concepts of:  

• A connected fabric to empower individuals, emergency responders, providers, and public health authorities for data sharing, integration, and access. 

• A device-agnostic structure that allows data to flow effectively between different sources, stores, and consumers. 

A Connected Fabric 

So, what is a connected fabric, and how could it empower health stakeholders for data sharing, integration, and access?  

In the third article of our series, we discussed this as a software-defined, private, high-performance network connecting all corners of a health organization to a global ecosystem of cloud services, for example, AWS, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Epic, Workday, etc. The organization could use this fabric to gain better control over its quality of user experience, application performance, data security, etc. Further, the fabric could allow the organization to create a shared service into which its partners (affiliated care organizations, public health authorities, first responders, commercial partners, etc.) could connect. The fabric could reduce the total transmission and storage of data through shared stores and advanced caching, while also offering simpler application development and deployment processes in cloud environments.  

Once established, the organization could use the fabric to provide a secure, reliable connection for virtually any network-capable system, device, tool, or piece of equipment anywhere in the US, anytime, allowing a variety of health stakeholders and IoT components to contribute and access information for data-driven decisions. The organization would simply need to determine which data sources, stores, and users it desires to connect, and which permissions it desires to grant them. 

Considerations for Integration 

The fabric would be an incredible tool for addressing many of the challenges in healthcare and public health we mentioned above. With the robust capabilities of this tool, an organization needs to carefully consider several related concepts: 

• Governance  

• Architecture  

• Development  

• Security  

The organization establishing the fabric may have considered these concepts at the enterprise-level, but what about a shared service into which its partners may connect? The organization will ultimately determine policy for the fabric, but now it might consider the needs of additional stakeholders it had not considered before: 

• Governance 

• How should the organization align data usage among all parties with its goals and strategy? 

• How should the organization receive input and achieve consensus among all parties for data sharing, data definitions, prioritization of data development work, etc.? 

• Should the organization use formal data-sharing agreements? 

• Architecture 

• How should the organization design its data environment for use by all parties? 

• What processes should the organization put in place for collecting, aggregating, cleansing, formatting, controlling, protecting, and sharing data? 

• How should the organization approach making its data environment interoperable with other health data systems (Electronic Health Records, public health archives, medical devices, environmental sensors)? 

• Development 

• How should the organization create its data environment for use by all parties? 

• Should other parties be allowed to participate in development work? 

• What tools should it make available to parties in the environment (analytics, visualization, Application Programming Interfaces, AI)? 

• Security 

• How should the organization control identification, access, authorization, and auditing for all parties hoping to use its data environment? 

• How should the organization protect its data environment from unauthorized parties (design standards, encryption, vulnerability scanning, threat detection, response automation)? 

• How should the organization approach compliance with applicable regulations pertaining to its data environment (HIPAA, FedRAMP, StateRAMP, etc.)? 

The Impact of a More Connected Healthcare Organization 

A connected fabric will not answer all the critical questions for a healthcare organization, but it will provide many of the tools needed to support the organization’s data environment decisions. Seamless connectivity can help overcome significant challenges, including: 

• Geographic access disparities: Ensuring patients in remote and underserved areas receive equitable healthcare services. 

• Infrastructure inefficiencies: Simplifying operations by integrating disparate healthcare systems. 

• Data silos: Breaking down barriers between healthcare stakeholders for better collaboration and decision-making. 

Stay tuned for our next article, where we’ll dive into how an AI-powered connected fabric could revolutionize the healthcare system.  

The author, Brett Barganz, is a Solutions Executive, for Connected Healthcare, at Verizon.  

The author, Scott O Andersen, is a Distinguished Architect at Verizon, he focuses on delivering advanced online services, leading pre-sales for the Verizon Secure Cloud Fabric (VSCF), representing Federal interests in Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) initiatives, and leading federal process improvements.