Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find a hospital that didn't rely on various forms of wireless communication. However, some hospitals are going into wireless more aggressively than others. One example is Platte Valley Medical Center of Brighton, CO, which decided to mount the most comprehensive wireless infrastructure it could when it opened up a new campus.
Convinced that it would need comprehensive wireless coverage, Platte Valley spent $1.2 million to put an infrastructure in place which would support not only Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g and VoIP, but also first-responder communication, two-way radios, paging and pervasive cell-spectrum coverage. It did so by going with vendor InnerWireless's distributed antenna system, Horizon.
Over time, using the new infrastructure, Platte Valley expects to support not only human communications, but also wireless telemetry, medication safety applications and more. The key was to build out a flexible-enough infrastructure to support whatever new applications they needed executives said.
To find out more about the hospital's wireless strategy:
- read this Digital Healthcare and Productivity article [1]
Related Articles:
Sprint, GE offer in-building hospital wireless services. Report [2]
Physician mobile, wireless tech use jumps. Report [3]
Study: Dramatic spike in physician smartphone use predicted. Report [4]
Qualcomm offers telemonitoring technology. Report [5]
Wireless IT is the future of medicine. Report [6]
Links:
[1] http://www.health-itworld.com/newsletters/2007/10/02/colorado-hospital-bets-big-on-wireless-future
[2] http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/sprint-ge-offer-building-hospital-wireless-services/2007-08-20
[3] http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/physician-mobile-wireless-tech-use-jumps/2006-11-27
[4] http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/study-dramatic-spike-physician-smartphone-use-predicted/2007-10-01
[5] http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/qualcomm-offers-telemonitoring-technology/2007-05-21
[6] http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/editor-s-corner/2006-10-23