FEATURE WIRELESS
High Performance Wi-Fi in the Hospital Environment Radio Therapy By Samantha Slater
To better serve their patients, the Liverpool
Women’s Hospital Trust decided to set up a wireless network to take patient
information and electronic prescription applications to the bedside. The Trust aspired to give doctors, nurses and other staff members access to Wi-Fi enabled laptop computer carts, which could deliver a host of applications designed to improve patient care and efficiency of the hospital staff.
Since delivering its first baby 210 years ago, Liverpool Women’s Hospital has evolved into the UK’s largest specialist women’s healthcare provider. In 2004 and 2005, the Trust delivered more than 8,000 babies and operated on more than 11,000 women. Today, Liverpool Women’s is a concentration of highly specialised skills, experience and facilities. As a teaching hospital, it is also a centre of excellence in the provision of both undergraduate and post-graduate medical education and training. As one of only two such specialist trusts in the UK, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust is fully equipped to provide world class professional and personal care to their patients. The Trust operates at a daily schedule that demands a wide range of services to support their operations, both in the front line and behind the scenes.
The diagnosis
The Trust needed a Wi-Fi network that would provide the needed coverage, user density, reliability and security to support a wide range of current and future applications. Round the clock monitoring of the Wi-Fi network for rogue access points and other security threats was a key requirement in protecting patient information. Dr Zafar Chaudry, Director of
Information Management and Technology, Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, explained: “We wanted to leverage the investment we already had with MediTech Systems, which was the primary hospital healthcare information system. Part of the remit was to bring electronic prescriptions to the bedside, but also other services such as IVF and neurology. However, when we looked at the network, we hardly had any Wi- Fi capabilities to deliver these services. “One of the biggest problems in
the UK healthcare arena is when you put anything into one of our buildings, the cost of running power and cabling is always an issue, because we commission that from the estate’s people within our organisation. So we actually had to find a solution that would fit in our budget.”
14 NETCOMMS Volume I, Issue 4 2011 The cure
Dr Chaudry explained, “We looked at the market and studied who was providing what in terms of Wi-Fi. We looked at the various vendors, and opted for Xirrus, because their solution used less in terms of hardware, cabling and power provision throughout the building.” Wi-Fi Arrays were deployed
throughout the hospital for doctors, nurses and other staff members to use laptop computer carts to deliver a host of applications, such as an electronic prescription application, a ‘single’ user sign-on scheme to increase staff efficiency. Providing a high capacity, high
bandwidth, and scalable Wi-Fi infrastructure is critical to improving patient care and proficiency in today’s premier hospital environments. Achieving ubiquitous coverage is a key factor in allowing doctors and nurses to have full network access whether at the patient’s bedside, in wards, or in the waiting areas. Traditional Wi-Fi networks cannot
keep pace with the trajectory of Wi-Fi needed for the multitude of mobilised applications and devices rapidly coming to market. Now more the ever, enterprises must deploy Wi-Fi networks that can scale with the “flash traffic” generated by a growing population of users, devices, and mobilised applications while making sure the Wi-Fi network offers the same level of experience and reliability as a wired network. This can be achieved by applying the “best practices” of wired networking to Wi-Fi, through distributing the intelligence to the edge and outfitting the Wi-Fi Array with dense multi-state radios in the same manner as a wired switch. “The Wi-Fi infrastructure that we
installed goes beyond a sea of access points and controllers, but is one that will provide the wireless foundation for a wide range of applications enabling us to truly mobilise our staff to improve patient care,” said Dr Chaudry. “Our staff are now able use what
we call ‘computers on wheels’ to do electronic prescriptions and display clinical systems at the bedside. This is
quite revolutionary for the clinical staff, and our nursing staff are able to save around 42 minutes each shift by using the technology at the patient’s bedside, which means 42 extra minutes to be spent with the patient.”
The prognosis
Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust is committed to delivering the highest quality healthcare to women and newborn babies. Future utilisation of the Wi-Fi network will involve tablet PCs and voice over Wi-Fi handsets delivering electronic charting capabilities and better communication capabilities throughout their facility. Alan Stewart-Brown, Xirrus
Area Vice President for the United Kingdom, commented: “The hospital was provided with a cost-effective, high performance, reliable, and fully upgradable wireless network – to support their applications today and five years from now. Whether it’s computer carts managing patient records today or iPads and other mobile devices doing it tomorrow, Liverpool has a system that will grow with them.” Dr Chaudry concluded, “Overall,
it was a very simple project. It is easy to use and it hasn’t broken. And that’s exactly what I need as a CIO.”
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