Consumer Ecosystems

Xiamen hospital improves care with Aruba wireless LAN

Xiamen Hospital in China’s Fujian Province is using a wireless LAN system from Aruba Networks to improve patient care in mobile Electronic Medical Records, patient registration applications, Real-Time Location Tracking, and video surveillance. 

Aruba Networks, which provides wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions, is deploying its solutions in China’s Xiamen Women and Children Hospital (XWCH)to aid mobile Electronic Medical Records (EMR), patient registration applications, Real-Time Location Tracking (RTLS), and video surveillance. Located in China's Fujian province, the 250-bed XWCH serves two-thirds of the province's women and children with a staff of more than 500. XWCH is the only local hospital to provide a combination of healthcare, disease prevention, medication, scientific research, family planning, and reproductive health services in one unit. The new wireless network was deployed to enhance staff mobility and productivity while improving overall patient care.

"Our hospital is focused on continuous quality improvement with respect to both services that affect patient care and our internal operations," said Yang Guangcai, Director of the Information Technology Department. "Aruba's mobility solutions have allowed us to integrate all patient-related information into one system that is accessible to authorised staff from anywhere within or outside our facility. Physicians can now securely retrieve and view patient data at bedside or from off-site, enhancing both patient care and community outreach without compromising the integrity of patient records."

To deliver a best-in-class wireless experience, Aruba's Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) uses infrastructure-based controls to optimise the performance of Wi-Fi clients in real-time. Acting on their own, Wi-Fi clients do not always work cooperatively with other clients, or select the optimal band, channel, and access point. These issues are exacerbated in settings like intensive care wards with densely packed users and large numbers of 802.11b telemetry and voice clients. ARM uses a variety of techniques to control how Wi-Fi clients interact, thereby ensuring that data, voice, and video applications have sufficient network resources (including airtime) to operate properly.

Hospital admission was previously a time-consuming task for both staff and patients. Now patients can register electronically using self-service kiosks, and avail themselves of free wireless guest network while waiting for service. To increase the volume of patient services, RTLS is used to locate essential medical equipment by continuously tracking high-value assets. "RTLS has largely eliminated manual searches for misplaced equipment, allowing us to expedite service and minimize patient waiting time," continued Yang Guangcai. "Combined with our wireless surveillance system, RTLS had also reduced the volume of lost and stolen equipment...Our mobility initiative mandated a network with the performance of Ethernet but the convenience of Wi-Fi." 

* Aruba Networks is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. It aims to delivers networks to users, wherever they work or roam, using a combination of award-winning solutions, eg, adaptive 802.11n Wi-Fi networks that optimise themselves to ensure that users are always within reach of mission-critical information; identity-based security to assign and enforce access policies; remote networking solutions for branch offices and fixed telecommuters, with satellite to ensure uninterrupted remote access to applications; and multi-vendor network management for a single point of control while managing both legacy and new wireless networks from Aruba and its competitors.

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