Hospitals are natural users of Wireless LANs and the reasons are clear – an almost 100% mobile workforce suffering increasing patient loads and skills shortages. Wireless networks can allow Clinicians to improve the efficiency and quality of patient care, by enabling Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and clinical decision support, especially as it relates to medication administration and avoidance of Adverse Drug Effects (ADE). However, these applications just scratch the surface of how Wireless LANs can help hospitals to deploy Advanced Clinicals across the enterprise, reduce operating costs, and meet regulatory requirements for patient privacy and safety.

Beyond enabling doctors and nurses to stay connected and maintain paperless patient records in real-time at the point of care, Trapeze Networks Smart Mobile wireless LANs allow many other dramatic improvements in productivity, patient safety and asset management all with the lowest total cost of ownership over alternative Enterprise WLAN solutions. 

Cell phone coverage indoors in hospitals is generally poor, resulting in dropped calls and mis-communication. A new alternative is for hospitals to use a new breed of dual mode Wi-Fi / Cellular handsets or pure Wi-Fi phones. These devices enable clinicians and caregivers to stay connected at all times wherever they are on campus. They can reach one-another reliably over the Wireless LAN without delay. This speeds up nurse or doctor response, reduces workflow bottlenecks, and dramatically improves patient satisfaction. In addition Wi-Fi enabled handsets can receive text messaging from nurse-call systems, heart monitors and many other medical devices, allowing caregivers to respond immediately to critical situations, without being tied to a desk. ROI within one year is typical, for Wi-Fi voice and unified messaging. In addition to 5-10% productivity gains, the savings on cell phone minutes alone can pay for the handsets.

Trapeze Networks’ Smart Mobile intelligent switching approach is uniquely optimized for delay-sensitive Voice traffic, with the most reliable roaming capabilities ensuring calls are not dropped as clinicians move around. Not only does Trapeze offer fast identity-based roaming across the enterprise, Trapeze also leads the field in supporting new standards such as WMM Powersave, designed to extend battery life on Wi-Fi phones and other devices.

Locating valuable assets in real-time is a critical requirement in Hospitals, where expensive devices such as IV pumps need to be shared by many wards. Wi-Fi technology allows location tracking electronically much like a GPS system, at a fraction of the cost of traditional passive RFID systems that are commonplace in Neonatal ICU. Real-time location services can also be used to find people, or to serve location-specific content to a hand-held device. For example as a doctor approaches a patients’ bedside, a location-enabled EMR application could display that patients’ medical records, without the doctor having to search for them.

Effective location tracking can improve emergency response and enables better equipment utilization, as well as allowing inventory reduction and preventing theft. However, speed and precision are paramount selection criteria. Trapeze’s Location Services solution is second to none, with the fastest discovery and most accurate location pinpointing available.

With advanced network-wide planning, configuration, monitoring and reporting, Trapeze’s management solution sets the industry benchmark for WLAN management, enabling short-staffed IT departments to deploy and operate enterprise-wide WLAN in a fraction of the time required by other WLAN management systems.

Trapeze is ranked first in WLAN Security among 11 vendors studied, by independent research firm ABI Research, so Healthcare organizations can rest assured their regulatory requirements for protecting patient privacy are met.

In addition, Trapeze Networks is partnered with Air Defense, the world leader in Wireless Intrusion Detection Systems / Intrusion Protection Systems (WIDS/WIPS). The combined solution provides the most comprehensive Wireless security available, with unique dynamic threat response capabilities, detailed forensic tracing capabilities and 50% savings in deployment cost resulting from using common hardware for Wireless Access Point and Wireless Security Sensor functions. No other vendor approaches this level of sophistication, management integration or affordability.