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

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Extreme Networks White Paper: Wireless Mobility: The New Productivity Tool in Healthcare 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 © 2011 Extreme Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
Extreme Networks White Paper: Wireless Mobility: The New Productivity Tool in Healthcare 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 © 2011 Extreme Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Wireless Mobility: The New Productivity Tool in ... - Extreme Networks

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