Wireless Mobility: The New Productivity Tool in ... - Extreme Networks

Extreme Networks White Paper 

Wireless Mobility: 

The New Productivity 

Tool in Healthcare 

Abstract 

The foremost goal for healthcare providers is to deliver 

the highest quality medical care to their patients. To 

accomplish this, caregivers in a hospital setting need 

productivity tools that allow them to spend more time 

taking care of patients and less time dealing with 

administrative tasks. Doctors and nurses, along with 

their support staff, are always on the go and attending 

to patients. Instant access to each other and patient 

records at the Point Of Care (POC) enhances staff 

productivity as well as patient care. In addition to 

providing productivity tools for caregivers, wireless 

mobility also supports business applications, such as 

Real Time Location Services (RTLS) for asset management 

and patient security. 

Extreme Networks® Wireless LANs (WLANs) provide 

reliable and HIPAA-compliant solutions for healthcare 

providers. Our WLANs deliver data and voice services, 

with high-perfomance connectivity, to the mobile 

workforce. They provide RTLS support, using active RFID 

tag technology geared for hospital environments. 

Make Your Network Mobile 

© 2011 Extreme Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Extreme Networks White Paper: Wireless Mobility: The New Productivity Tool in Healthcare 

Overview: What Patients Want, 

What Doctors Need 

One look at the furnishings in a hospital room provides 

valuable insight into the nature of modern healthcare. 

Short of the wash sink, almost every piece of furniture or 

equipment is built on wheels: patient beds, wheelchairs, 

equipment trays, medication dispensing carts, ECG 

monitors, smart-pump infusion units, and computer 

workstations. The phrase “making patient rounds” tells a 

similar story, everyone moves. This includes patients, 

visitors, doctors, nurses, therapists, aides and 

technicians. 

Quality healthcare depends in part on access to 

Electronic Medical Records (EMR), which these days 

contain considerably more than handwritten notes and 

x-ray films. Sophisticated EMR applications are used to 

organize a “filing cabinet’s” worth of patient information, 

such as nursing notes, Computerized Physician Order 

Entries (CPOE), therapy and/or medication scheduling, 

patient drug/food allergies, family medical histories and 

more. Medical imaging technologies, such as Digital 

Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and 

Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) 

can produce, store and deliver animated, color-coded, 

3D-rendered, high-resolution images. Bedside monitors 

and implantable sensors provide round-the-clock 

diagnostic metrics of patient life signs, such as temperature, 

pulse, blood pressure and oxygen intake. 

In today’s competitive market, healthcare providers face IT 

challenges for wireless deployment that include: 

• Free-roaming voice coverage that penetrates 

garages, walkways and elevators 

• Clear RF transmissions that won’t interfere with 

medical equipment 

• Anytime, anywhere delivery of EMR and CPOE 

• 24/7 network uptime and reliability 

• Continuous monitoring of patient vital signs, location 

and scheduling 

• Real-time tracking of portable equipment and 

devices 

• Secured hotspots for guest services 

• Compliance with HIPAA security and EMI standards 

• Fast access to PACS and DICOM medical imaging 

• Easy scalability and upgrades without forklift 

replacements 

• Centralized network administration and 

troubleshooting 

A well-planned WLAN deployment can help enhance 

patient care, staff productivity, operations efficiency, 

OPEX/CAPEX, site-wide communications and regulatory 

compliance. No longer are caregivers forced to remain 

tethered to their desks in order to access data or 

communicate with each other. IEEE 802.11n WLANs 

represent a huge leap forward from legacy 802.11a/b/g 

technologies. For starters, 802.11n offers more bandwidth 

and resiliency, for improved performance in the 

dynamic RF environment commonly encountered in the 

hospital setting. 

2 



Table 1 

Features 

1. • Dual-Radio APs 

• 802.11n MIMO 

• Indoor or Outdoor APs 

• Mesh AP Configuration 

2. • Dual Channels: 2.4GHz/5GHz 

• Compliant with IEC 60601-1-2: 2007 EMC 

• Draeger-Certified 

• Clustered Controller Configuration 

• Link Redundancy, Auto-Failover 

3. • Motorola AirDefense Services Platform 

(ADSP)* 

• RFID Tags, RTLS Monitoring 

4. • Wire-Speed Throughputs 

• Load Balanced, Aggregate Links 

• 802.1e QoS Traffic Prioritization 

• PCIe Card Slot 

• SMART RF 

5. • Central Management 

• Link Testing Utilities 

• Plug-n-Play Installation 

• Smart License Sharing 

6. • WPA2, IPSec VPN 

• WIPS/WIDS 

• AAA, RADIUS 

• Hotspot, Geofencing 

Benefits 

High-Speed Connectivity that Moves 

• Delivers seamless zone-to-zone roaming 

• Extends connectivity outdoors and between buildings 

• Delivers critical services to POC, regardless of location 

• Transports bulky DICOM files and streaming media 

Reliable, Interference-Free Signals 

• Boosts radio signals for high-performance transmissions 

• Provides reliable, on-demand voice and data services 

• Safeguards against catastrophic link failure 

• Reduces dead zones in changing RF environments 

Finding WOW, Now 

• Provides centralized control and monitoring of roaming users 

• Quickly locates mobile devices and Workstations On Wheels (WOW) 

Wireless Voice and More 

• Delivers high-quality, VoIP and video to handsets or badges 

• Gives voice traffic priority over data streams 

• Distributes network traffic to reduce or eliminate bottlenecks 

• Supports addition of dedicated 3G WAN or other services 

Lower OPEX, CAPEX 

• Reduces administrative costs with automated features 

• Gets new deployments online faster 

• Proactively anticipates connectivity before problems arise 

Security Compliance 

• Provides HIPAA-grade encryption and data security 

• Separates guest services from confidential databases 

• Monitors, logs and alerts security events, including breaches 

1 

2 

3 

WLAN A 

WLAN B 

WLAN A 

Walkway 

Critical Care 

“Last WOW” 

6 

5 

4 

WLAN A 

Hotspot 

WLAN A 

OB-GYN 

IT Department 

Conference Room 

5536-01 

Figure 1: 802.11n WLAN Topology for a Hospital 

*Future availability. Appliance models 1252, 3652 and 4250 sold separately. 

3 



Delivering Voice Everywhere 

With patients, staff and equipment constantly on the 

move, Voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) offers a mobile 

enterprise solution for hospital communications. For 

example, using a WLAN-enabled VoIP handset, a cardiac 

surgeon can discuss a new patient referral from an 

internal medicine colleague, while walking from surgery 

to the conference room. A nurse dispensing medication 

in the OB-GYN wing can be advised, via a voice-enabled 

badge, of a prescription change affecting a patient’s 

dosage. An x-ray technician pulling into the parking 

garage could be called into a last-minute staff meeting. 

Naturally, voice communications are critical services, 

which means the VoWLAN must provide high-quality 

voice communications, with seamless mobility, 

continuous availability and clear sound. The availability 

bar is raised high when network downtime, at the wrong 

time, can mean delayed response to patient care. 

Solution: Seamless, Wireless 

Voice Networks 

Mobile healthcare staff needs voice services that work 

across all zones of the hospital—going indoors to 

outdoors, from building to building, inside elevators, 

through covered walkways and into parking garages. Cell 

phone networks can have problems with spotty service 

inside the hospital walls. 

Summit® WM3000 series controllers and Altitude® 

Access Points (APs) are fully standards-compliant with 

802.11n, helping ensure optimal performance over an 

extended life cycle. 802.11n wireless technologies use 

Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna arrays 

and two frequency bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) to 

significantly boost wireless bandwidth over older 

802.11a/b/g systems, enabling delivery of high-quality 

VoWLAN to wireless handsets and badges. The 5 GHz 

spectrum has an added advantage of developing less 

cross-channel interference, a critical benefit in an 

airspace already crowded with electronic signals. 

services or other dedicated wireless network. Adaptive 

APs can be configured as a local bridge or point-topoint 

mesh, extending high-performance wireless 

coverage into the most remote wings of the facility and 

helping eliminate “hairpin” traffic bottlenecks. 

802.11e Quality of Service (QoS), Wi-Fi Multimedia 

(WMM), Unscheduled Automatic Power Save Delivery 

(UAPSD), SIP Call Admission Control and Self-Monitoring 

at Run Time Radio Frequency (SMART RF) help provide 

trouble-free delivery of time-sensitive and bulky 

files—such as IP PBX telephony, DICOM images and 

video teleconference—without skipping a beat, or 

dropping a packet. 

Solution: Flexible Installation, 

Lower-Cost Operation 

Implementing an Extreme Networks WLAN solution can 

help provide you with superior returns and lifecycle 

management. Summit WM3000 series controllers, 

Altitude APs and Motorola ADSP are backwardscompatible 

with 802.11a/b/g-compliant systems, helping 

ensure flawless integration, easier configuration and less 

troubleshooting. 

For maximum installation flexibility, the APs come in 

versions for indoor or outdoor use, with external or 

internal antennas. Some models of Altitude APs are 

plenum rated, so they can be installed above dropceilings, 

out of sight. This helps hospital rooms stay 

clean and free of clutter. Choose thin APs for the more 

cost-effective wireless deployments. Install adaptive APs 

to configure as a bridge or mesh, or to terminate an 

IPSec VPN tunnel. All Altitude APs are encased in 

compact, tamper-proof, easily cleaned housings and 

come with built-in mounting brackets. 

Controllers and APs are compliant with 802.3af Power 

over Ethernet (PoE), foregoing the need to install them 

near wall outlets or purchase separate power supplies. 

Controllers automatically scan the wireless network, 

discovering, licensing and configuring new APs for 

nearly plug-n-play ease of installation. 

Extreme Networks WLAN solutions support IP PBX 

servers and SIP and VoIP handsets from a number of 

vendors, such as Vocera. The controllers include a PCIe 

card slot that can be used to add 3G/4G WAN phone 

4 



Getting Rid of Sneaker Net for 

Mobile POC 

Being on-call means being in the right place, at a 

moment’s notice. With Workstations On Wheels (WOW) 

and other types of portable medical equipment, 

caregivers can travel from bedside to bedside. Highspeed 

wireless communications keep the information 

flowing to these mobile POCs with the click of a mouse 

or touch of a screen. For example, with high speed 

WLAN, the attending physician could call up DICOM 

images at the patient’s bedside, while simultaneously 

submitting a prescription to the pharmacy and physical 

therapy schedule to the nurse’s station. 

Bedside monitors and wearable/implantable sensors can 

detect changes in respiration rate or temperature—which 

could indicate an Adverse Drug Events (ADE) or acute 

infection—and trigger an alert at the nursing station. At 

the same time, the event can be logged to a centralized 

EMR database for future retrieval and analysis. Patient 

movement can be tracked using RFID tag wrist bands. If 

a patient crosses a preset boundary threshold, an 

automatic alert can be sent to the attendant nurse 

station along with the precise location of the patient. 

Solution: Reliable, Resilient 

Mobile Connectivity 

Using a portable tablet or handheld device such as an 

iPad, caregivers can search through mountains of 

digitized data in mere seconds. In fact, according to the 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the 

number and severity of patient safety incidents can be 

considerably reduced by the use of automated detection 

and computerized records. 1 For example, the primary 

care physician who chooses to administer pain medication 

during a patient visit can check for allergies, 

contraindications, pre-existing conditions and drug 

interactions before submitting the prescription to the 

hospital pharmacy. 

Controllers and APs can be deployed as edge-distributed, 

overlapping zones of coverage to help eliminate 

dead zones and single points of failure. When configured 

into redundant, clustered arrays, controllers and APs 

operate as a unified high-density domain that supports 

aggregate load-balancing, link auto-sensing, automated 

link failover and remote management. 

High-performance controller features—Gigagbit 

Ethernet ports, self-aware fault-detection, automatedfailover 

and support for redundant arrays—work with 

minimal administrative intervention. The controllers can 

supply low-voltage PoE to wired network appliances, 

without requiring a separate power injector. This can 

mean less clutter in the wiring closet and more savings 

on utility bills, not to mention less carbon into the 

atmosphere. 

Keeping the Fleet Running for 

Asset Management 

Real-time location services can be a very valuable tool 

for tracking high-value mobile assets, which can be 

easily misplaced or lost. For example, if a WOW goes 

offline, it is tempting to shove it aside and grab an 

available unit, rather than take the time to submit a 

trouble ticket and wait around for IT staff to respond. 

The usual, albeit expensive, resolution is to purchase 

extra equipment in order to have a number of working 

spares available when a unit goes missing or breaks 

down. Unfortunately, these “spare” units sit around idle 

and underutilized. A better strategy would be to 

maximize the number of mobile units up and operational 

at any one time, which improves the hospital’s CAPEX. 

Solution: Real-Time Monitoring 

and Alerting 

During emergent critical-care events, caregivers can 

waste valuable time tracking a wheel chair, patient bed 

or piece of equipment. Real-time locating features can 

be invaluable during an emergency, when seconds 

count, to swiftly pinpoint equipment and supplies. 

1 

Agency for healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Servicesm http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/aderia/ 

aderia.htm#ADEsPrevented, October 2010. 

5 



Active RFID technology can be used for sensor applications, 

including temperature threshold alarms for 

temperature-regulating equipment such as incubators, 

water baths, refrigerators and freezers. Tissue samples, 

vaccines, blood cultures and many drugs must be stored 

at precisely regulated temperatures. 

Summit WM3000 series controllers enable IT 

administrators to locate in real time, RFID-equipped 

workstations, equipment, patient beds and devices. The 

Summit WM WLAN system can support enhanced RTLS 

solutions from best-of-breed vendors such as Ekahau 

and AeroScout. 

Achieving Regulatory 

Compliance and Interoperablity 

As compared to other enterprise deployments, hospitals 

present numerous sources of physical and electronic 

interference. False walls/ceilings for housing supply lines 

for gas, water and network wiring, add structural layers 

that wireless signals must penetrate. Emergency, 

operating and treatment rooms are packed with stainless 

steel furnishings and equipment. Worse yet, the reflective/transmissive 

qualities of these spaces change 

dynamically as equipment is moved in and out of rooms, 

or beds get stored in hallways. 

The problem of electronic interference is particularly 

problematic for healthcare providers because slow 

network response can have a direct impact on patient 

care. Wireless medical equipment must meet especially 

stringent standards designed to ensure WLAN transmissions 

do not cause interference with other wireless 

devices. In addition to medical equipment, automatic 

doors, elevators, microwaves and other radio-controlled 

systems can play havoc with wireless communications. 

Patient records must be secured in accordance with 

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 

(HIPAA) regulations. For healthcare organizations 

planning to apply for the newly approved Health 

Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health 

(HITECH) funding, data encryption is a key requirement. 

(See sidebar.) 

Solution: Clear Signals and EMC Certified 

Summit WM3000 series controllers and Altitude APs are 

designed to boost signal transmissions through dense 

structures, across large coverage areas and within 

crowded frequency bands. They are certified compliant 

with 60601-1-2: 2007 EMC regulatory standards to avoid 

problems of Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) with 

medical devices. They are also certified to interoperate 

with Draeger wireless medical equipment, such as the 

Infinity OneNet patient monitoring system. 

Encryption - A Hot Issue in HITCH 

Funding 

The incentive for healthcare organizations to upgrade their 

enterprise LAN has become a lot more attractive recently. 

Starting in 2011, the Health Information Technology for 

Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act will distribute 

$19.2 billion to aid healthcare organizations transitioning 

patient records to EMR. 

The eligibility requirements are still being discussed 

among healthcare providers, analysts and consultants; 

nonetheless, most agree that data encryption will be the 

predominant security mechanism, in large part because 

encrypted data is not subject to breach notification 

requirements. Data encryption can be relatively easy and 

economical to deploy. Once configured, encryption 

engines typically apply hashing algorithms to data packets 

without manual intervention. Other security requirements 

include access control, administrative oversight, workforce 

training, risk analysis and physical security. 2 

802.11n wireless supports a new encryption standard, 

WPA-2, which offers a considerable improvement in data 

security over the older 802.11a/b/g wireless transmissions. 

IPSec VPN tunneling safeguards user sessions across 

public networks such as the Internet. 

2 

“Summary of the HIPAA Rule”, U.S. Department of Health & 

Human Services, http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/ 

understanding/srsummary.html, October 2010. 

6 



Solution: Multilayered Security 

Summit WM3000 series controllers, Altitude APs and 

Motorola ADSP are designed to create multiple layers of 

protection, across wireless and wired segments of the 

LAN. Many of the security features work automatically 

or with minimal intervention, and can be configured to 

send network alerts prompting further administrative 

action as needed. 

Four-factor access control includes identity, role, 

location and device policy compliance via NAC. The 

latest authentication and encryption schemes, based on 

IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 standards, safeguard confidential 

wireless traffic from packet sniffers and spyware. 

Combining hotspot access with geofencing creates 

physically delineated wireless zones for guest and 

visitor services. 

APs can be configured as channel specific or dedicated 

scanners that will detect and block rogue APs, controllers, 

mobile devices and user sessions. For added 

security at the network edge, adaptive APs come with 

security features designed to work independently 

should communications with local controllers or 

enterprise servers be lost. 

The controller’s built-in stateful-inspection firewall 

secures traffic—wired and wireless—as it is switched or 

routed through the controller. Firewall policies can be 

configured to permit, deny or mark traffic flows based 

on criteria or rules, which might include traffic stream, 

VLAN, switch port, user role and/or device ID identity, 

location and connection characteristics. The management 

dashboard enables network administrators to help 

secure IP and non-IP traffic flows, as well as detect 

attacks to the wireless network not typically visible to 

traditional, wired-firewall appliances. 

advanced wireless IDS/IPS feature can detect over 200 

types of network threats. Advanced forensics and 

vulnerability and spectrum analysis further protect the 

network from potential intrusions and attacks. 

Healthcare Is Going Mobile. Are 

You Ready 

Extreme Networks WLAN solutions offer advanced 

technologies, along with features that provide 

standards-compliant, convergence-ready and robustly 

secure means for improving patient POC, operating 

efficiencies and asset management. 

Extreme Networks wired and wireless solutions are 

designed to deliver a “mobile enterprise network” 

capable of: 

• seamless integration of legacy and nextgeneration 

systems 

• proactive detection and containment of rogue 

devices and unauthorized logins 

• centralized management of roaming users and 

remote devices 

• adaptive provisioning for virtual network services 

• auto-sensing/-adjusting power levels, traffic loads 

and service priorities 

• identification of users across subnets, ports, 

devices and roles 

Visit our Website to learn more about cost-effectively 

achieving a “mobile enterprise WLAN”—one that is 

device-agnostic, self-healing, service aware, centrally 

managed and ultra-high performing. 

Motorola ADSP, a comprehensive wireless security and 

management platform, integrates another level of 

in-house security into the WLAN infrastructure. The 

Make Your Network Mobile 

Corporate 

and North America 

Extreme Networks, Inc. 

3585 Monroe Street 

Santa Clara, CA 95051 USA 

Phone +1 408 579 2800 

Europe, Middle East, Africa 

and South America 

Phone +31 30 800 5100 

Asia Pacific 

Phone +65 6836 5437 

Japan 

Phone +81 3 5842 4011 

www.extremenetworks.com 

© 2011 Extreme Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Extreme Networks, the Extreme Networks logo, Altitude and Summit are either registered trademarks 

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Wireless Mobility: The New Productivity Tool in ... - Extreme Networks

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