Driven by a need for improved asset management, staff mobility and standardized medication administration to name a few benefits, hospitals are likely to invest much more heavily in Wi-Fi technologies over the next five years, according to a new research report.

In fact, with the help of the $20 billion in health IT funding set aside by the new stimulus law, hospital Wi-Fi spending should hit $4.9 billion by 2014, according to a report by ABI Research. That's a 70 percent jump from 2009 levels.

These new investments should not only save on operating costs and reduce clinical errors, they're also needed to help hospitals comply with HIPAA requirements by changing out older wireless gear for state-of-the art equipment, ABI researchers noted.

Hospital IT buyers should bear in mind, however, that no one vendor will be able to offer all of the different Wi-Fi components they're likely to need, which could include Wi-Fi RTLS hardware and software, access points, managed services and pure Wi-Fi and dual-band handsets. Systems integrators and partners are likely to play a particularly important role, they suggest.

To learn more about this trend:
- read this eWeek piece

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