For some industries, digital transformation has proved especially challenging, given the complexities and dynamics of their work environments. In the early phase of the pandemic, medical professionals were the frontline defense. Yet many professionals in the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors had to work remotely. The challenge: their laboratory instruments and research remained disconnected, “serving as analog islands in a digital ocean,” per PharmaTimes.
Shortly thereafter emerged the era of digital labs involving the digitalization of entire laboratory operations and data processes, many of which follow the FAIR framework, which refers to making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
Making data remotely accessible for digital labs requires solutions capable of ensuring seamless and secure workflows that do not disrupt the pace of work for researchers and lab technicians developing potentially life-saving vaccines, medications, and research. Reliability is vital. This blog explores how Splashtop’s remote access and IT support solutions are uniquely positioned to meet the high-stakes demands of these industries, providing unparalleled reliability, security, and cost-effectiveness.
Background on Digital Labs
Digital labs have traded siloed work for vast lakes of data and enhanced computational capabilities that advance and accelerate research – often aided by AI and machine learning technologies that surface themes and trends in the data. In other words, digital labs have transformed the future and potential of medical and drug research, shrinking discovery windows for decentralized clinical trials and improving time-to-market for groundbreaking drugs. These labs, coupled with high-powered specialized workstations and a diverse array of lab devices, enable researchers and technicians to analyze, share, collaborate, and build research from immense amounts of data.
The Need for Reliable Remote Access
The rise and standardization of digital labs in many ways mirrors that of the digital transformation enabling remote work – a next step for digital labs.
For physicians, scientists, clinicians, drug developers, and researchers, the ability to remotely connect to digital labs is crucial. High-performance remote access solutions enable these professionals to retrieve data seamlessly from different locations and ensure that ongoing experiments remain undisturbed by physical presence in the labs. This flexibility enhances productivity and ensures that critical research activities can continue uninterrupted.
Key Requirements of IT in Healthcare and Lab Research
When IT leaders and advisors in healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceutical sectors explore potential remote access solutions for their digital labs, they must consider several key factors that impact the effectiveness of their operations and are crucial for maintaining productivity and security in these critical environments.
Firstly, reliability is critical. Research and clinical activities often run around the clock, and any downtime can lead to significant disruptions, delays in research, and potential loss of critical data. IT solutions must guarantee continuous and uninterrupted access to digital labs to maintain productivity and ensure timely outcomes.
High-speed precision capabilities are also essential. Researchers and clinicians need to access and manipulate large datasets in real-time, requiring high-speed connections and low latency. This is especially critical for applications like remote diagnostics, data analysis, and real-time monitoring of experiments.
Interoperability with existing infrastructure is another critical factor. Digital labs often utilize a diverse array of specialized hardware and software. Remote access solutions must be compatible with these existing systems to ensure seamless integration and avoid additional costs or complications. IT solutions need to be scalable to accommodate growing data volumes and increasing numbers of remote users without compromising performance or security.
Robust cybersecurity measures are mandatory to protect sensitive data. Healthcare and research institutions handle vast amounts of sensitive data, including patient information and proprietary research data. Protecting this data from cybersecurity threats is of the highest importance. IT solutions must comply with stringent regulatory requirements such as HIPAA for healthcare data and global standards in data protection like ISO and GDPR. Ensuring compliance involves implementing solutions with comprehensive security protocols and regularly auditing systems for vulnerabilities.
For end users, remote access solutions should be intuitive and user-friendly in order to promote high levels of adoption among medical professionals and research scientists. An easy-to-use interface minimizes the learning curve and helps users quickly become proficient. For IT professionals, the solutions should also be seamless, allowing easy deployment, management, and troubleshooting capabilities to ensure efficient support and maintenance for end users or endpoints in the laboratory.
Finally, cost management is a significant consideration. Healthcare and research institutions have among the most complex of operations and need to conserve and stretch their budgets across numerous areas. Beyond initial costs, solutions need to optimize operational efficiency to reduce ongoing maintenance and expenses.
How Splashtop Meets These Challenges
Splashtop’s secure cloud-based and on-prem remote access and support solutions address these challenges with a comprehensive suite of features designed for demanding use cases such as digital lab access and support.
Reliability and Performance: Splashtop ensures real-time access to lab devices and data, boasting high refresh rates and video accuracy critical for things like image analysis. This performance is essential for maintaining the precision required in these sectors.
Ease of Use: Designed with user experience in mind, Splashtop’s intuitive interface ensures quick adoption by end users, including physicians, scientists, clinicians, and researchers. This ease of use minimizes downtime and enhances productivity.
Security Features: Splashtop is compliant with global data protection standards, including ISO 21007, GDPR, and SOC 2, with support for client-side regulations, including HIPAA and PCI. We protect sensitive data through single sign-on (SSO), granular controls, watermarks, end-to-end encryption, remote connection notifications, and more.
Cost-Effectiveness: Splashtop’s solutions are not only comprehensive but also cost-effective, substantially cutting relative costs for healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceutical businesses. This financial efficiency enables organizations to allocate resources more effectively.
Real-World Applications
Splashtop is already making a significant impact in the real world. Numerous hospitals use Splashtop to provide remote access to resources by medical professionals and to provide on-demand and unattended IT support for personnel and equipment. This capability improves uptime and enables greater flexibility for medical staff requiring remote access.
In the pharmaceutical industry, enterprise companies leverage Splashtop to enable remote access to digital labs, allowing researchers to conduct advanced work involving vast amounts of data for developing cutting-edge vaccines and medications. These real-world applications demonstrate Splashtop’s value in enhancing productivity and ensuring continuity in critical research activities.
Conclusion
The critical importance of secure and reliable remote access and support solutions in the healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceutical sectors is clear. Splashtop is a proven leader in providing these solutions, offering seamless reliability, performance, security, and cost-effectiveness.
To learn more about how Splashtop can benefit your organization and support the needs of your digital lab environments, check out our solutions for the healthcare industry or contact us for more information.
Further reading: The Importance of Cybersecurity in Healthcare
