CENSIS is supporting a series of IoT testbeds across hospitals and healthcare facilities in the Highlands and Islands as part of a bid to explore how NHS Highland can drive efficiency and enhance user and staff experience.
The initial set of networks will be rolled out at Lorn & Islands Hospital in Oban, Fort William’s Belford Hospital, and Caithness General Hospital in Wick with more to follow. A testbed is already set up and operational at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. The testbeds will be used to explore a wide array of non-clinical applications for NHS Highland. These could range from monitoring the health board’s environmental impact to supporting patient safety.
NHS Highland serves over 300,000 people and is largest NHS estate (in terms of size) in the UK at 32,500 square kilometres – almost equivalent to the size of Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
FutureTech
This project is a health IoT project, part of the wider FutureTech series of IoT projects supported by the Scottish Government. In 2019-20, CENSIS delivered a year-long Scottish Government-funded programme to demonstrate the transformative potential of IoT across some of Scotland’s key growth industries. The programme of activity included a series of ‘FutureTech’ workshops to identify projects for ongoing support as well as the development of IoT2Go, a starter kit aimed at businesses without any in-house IoT expertise. Combined with a suite of ‘how-to’ guides from CENSIS, these initiatives will aim to educate and inform businesses and organisations about how they can use IoT technology. Each stage of the programme was designed to maximise the potential for IoT technologies and promote their benefits to both the private and public sector in Scotland.