It always starts with a spreadsheet.
The emergency light goes out, the oxygen concentrator starts acting up, and somewhere in a shared folder, someone opens a bloated Excel file to log the issue — manually. Again.
It’s 2025, and hospitals are still trying to track high-value medical assets the same way we tracked monthly expenses in 2003. With every broken ventilator or misrouted defibrillator, critical seconds are lost, and patient outcomes are put at risk. Not because the tech doesn’t exist — but because the adoption doesn’t.
I’ve worked closely with teams who live and breathe hospital operations — biomedical engineers, procurement heads, clinical staff. What unites them isn’t inefficiency or negligence. It’s the sheer volume of pressure they’re under. And the fact that their tools aren’t evolving fast enough to match it.
The invisible load
There’s a quiet heroism in hospital maintenance teams. They’re the ones ensuring infusion pumps don’t fail mid-operation, or that wheelchairs are available when needed. But more often than not, they’re working reactively.
They can’t predict failures because their data lives in silos — across logbooks, WhatsApp chats, or outdated ERPs. Without centralized systems or AI-driven alerts, the “invisible work” stays invisible… until it becomes a crisis.
Tech isn’t a luxury anymore
For years, hospital tech investments leaned heavily toward diagnostic and treatment tools — MRIs, robotic surgeries, telemedicine platforms. But the infrastructure that holds it all together? Often overlooked.
That’s beginning to change.
We’re now seeing interest in platforms that bring preventive maintenance, real-time asset tracking, and data-driven decision-making under one digital roof. What used to be “future plans” are becoming survival strategies — especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where resource optimization isn’t just smart, it’s essential.
Lessons from the ground
Once, during a site visit, a facilities manager showed me a closet of tagged, unused BP monitors. “We didn’t know these were working,” he said. “We ordered new ones.”
That incident wasn’t rare — it was normal. Multiply that across 400+ beds, across multiple departments, and you realize: the financial loss is only part of the story. The real impact is patient-facing.
When hospitals don’t have the right equipment in the right place at the right time, care suffers. And that’s a tech problem. One we can solve.
The shift we need
As healthcare professionals and digital leaders, we must push for systems that prioritize operational clarity. The goal isn’t to replace humans — it’s to support them. To let engineers focus on saving lives, not chasing serial numbers.
When we give our hospitals the tools they deserve — predictive maintenance dashboards, smart alerts, clean analytics — we’re not just optimizing a process. We’re preserving trust. And lives.
It’s time we looked beyond the OT and the ICU. The next frontier of hospital transformation is in the basement, the hallway, the asset tracker that still needs someone to update it manually. Let’s fix that.
Photo: AndreyPopov, Getty Images
Sonali Mohanraj is a Digital Marketing Executive at Proteger AI, where she helps bridge the gap between frontline care and operational technology through Vajra, the hospital asset intelligence platform. She has a deep curiosity for hospital tech and operational transformation, and she’s passionate about telling stories that sit at the intersection of technology and human behavior.
This post appears through the MedCity Influencers program. Anyone can publish their perspective on business and innovation in healthcare on MedCity News through MedCity Influencers. Click here to find out how.
