HIMMS Analytics launched a new maturity model – Infrastructure Adoption Model or INFRAM, to evaluate the IT infrastructure of health systems on five sub-domains. INFRAM is aimed to help the health organizations obtain the best infrastructure to improve care, reducing risks for IT and network infrastructure security, as well as to support the clinical objectives of those organizations.
INFRAM specifically focuses on five technical areas: mobility, security, collaboration, transport and data center.
The 8-stages model permits to IT decision makers to assure that their infrastructure is “stable, manageable and scalable”, as HIMSS stated. The higher step, Stage 7, culminates with “integration, contextualization and orchestration of optimized information, prerequisite for supporting assistance, virtualized at the highest level. Here are the 8 stages:
Stage 7: adaptive and flexible control of the network, with software-defined networks; tele-monitoring from home; internet/TV on demand.
Stage 6: automatic validation of the network experience defined by the software; automation of on-premise applications – enterprise/hybrid cloud – and of infrastructures.
Stage 5: video on mobile devices; messaging based on position; firewall with advanced protection against cyber threats; real-time scanning of hyper-textual connections in the e-mail.
Stage 4: multi-parties video capacity; wireless covering in most of sites; high availability active/active; remote access VPN.
Stage 3: advanced system of intrusion prevention; calculation architecture based on rack/tower/tower/blade server; end-to-end QoS; defined public and private cloud strategy.
Stage 2: Intrusion detection/prevention; informal security policy; peripheral systems which are centrally managed by different network management systems.
Stage 1: static network configuration; fixed commutation platform; active/standby failover; single wireless controller only LWAP; ad hoc local archive network; any datacenter automation.
Stage 0: any VPN; intrusion detection/prevention; security policy, datacenter or calculation architecture.
This maturity model, as the other ones of HIMSS, presents advantages and disadvantages: it is simple to explain and synthetic, through a number, in its expression; the simplicity flattens the valuation depth (almost at final result level) and the incremental logic not always finds confirmation in the implementation strategy that can be parallel instead of sequential.
Undoubtedly, a maturity model for the Health infrastructure is useful, and its definition protect against the lack in a sector often undervalued and considered quite assumed.
What is the situation in your country? In my opinion most of the health organization, either public and private, are positioned low in the scale. And what about your IT infrastructure?
Digital-health 