Voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) technology was
selected to boost the effectiveness of communications at Swedish
Medical Centre after a survey found that employees were frustrated
with the existing communications system.
The survey, designed to help improve working conditions for the
staff, revealed that nurses, doctors and patients were craving a
more efficient system to keep everyone in touch, according to Chad
Landry, the hospital's director of information services and
telecommunications.
Under the original system, nurses typically had to go to the
main desk on the floor, phone or page a doctor, and wait at the
desk for a response -- which could take a few minutes or much
longer. Likewise, if a nurse did not wait for a response when the
doctor returned the call, the nurse would have to be paged to the
front desk or physically tracked down while the doctor waited on
the phone.
That method, Landry said, was inefficient, especially considering
that the nurse could be involved in an important care-giving task
and even a few wasted minutes could be detrimental.
The staff indicated that the (frequently long) delays in
response between doctors and nurses and the lost time spent
physically tracking down a doctor or nurse who did not respond to
paging hindered timely patient care and caused an unnecessary loss
in productivity.
In an effort to improve the employees' work environment and job
satisfaction, and also to improve the treatment and care received
by patients, the IT staff set out to find a more effective
communications solution.
Initially looking at a 900 MHz system, the hospital soon learned
that these systems suffered from a number of problems, such as poor
reception and frequent interference. In addition, the actual range
in which the device would operate was not always adequate in a
hospital environment where the airspace is already fairly
crowded.
"The 900 MHz system was an older technology operating in a very
crowded broadcast space," Landry said in regard to Swedish Medical
Center's first thoughts on a new communications system.
In addition to looking at new communications systems, the
hospital was also preparing an improvement to its Electronic
Medication Administration Records (EMAR) system, which allows more
effective tracking of patients' medical history to ensure
medication safety. The EMAR system often uses computers on wheels,
known as COWS, which incorporate the use of laptops and wireless
technology.
The hospital was already planning a wireless 802.11 network
installation to accommodate the EMAR system, and the IT team
realised that this wireless network could also be used to support
voice communications. This led the team to consider
Voice over IP (VoIP) and investigate whether or not VoIP would
actually be a good idea in an often-hectic hospital
environment.
Deploying the wireless network also meant that the hospital
would be able to run several new services -- voice, data and
Internet access for patients and visitors -- on one architecture,
and it would be able to use EMERGIN software to integrate its text
paging and alert messaging system with the new VoIP system and
phones.
"We decided that providing wireless phone service to the staff
would be an aid in increasing the effectiveness of [the type of]
communication [that would improve our employees' satisfaction with
their workplace]," Landry said.
Looking at solutions from several vendors -- Polycom, Cisco and
Avaya among them -- Landry's main criteria were the durability of
the phone, battery life, battery-charging schemes (using desktop
chargers vs. gang chargers), ease of maintenance, service, and
openness of the standards on the phone itself.
Following up its research, Landry's team settled on the
Spectralink system offered by Polycom because of its openness and
its ability to handle differing vendors on both the phone switch
side and the phone device side. For the switch, Landry chose
Cisco's CallManager.
The choice of Polycom's Spectralink system meant that Swedish
Medical Center would be able to capitalise on some of the features
that VoWLAN technology promises -- saving money by not running
wires, greater mobility of staff, and the ease of deployment and
use that many IT departments are looking for. In particular,
Polycom's solution would allow Landry to keep his system open
because Spectralink boosts an interoperability that lets the
hospital work with any number of vendors.
Ben Guderian, vice president of marketing at Polycom, said:
"Promoting this type of interoperability allows our customers to
continue making best-of-breed decisions, which gives them the
opportunity to build the specific type of network that works best
in their environment."
Landry added that the necessary hardware for the Polycom system
also offered better durability and longer battery life at the time
of purchase.
The only disadvantage, Landry said, was that when Swedish
Medical Center deployed the Polycom solution, clamshell or
pocket-sized phones were not available. For nurses, who are
typically in scrubs (which do not require a belt), it was difficult
to find a place to carry a phone.
Guderian noted that the next step for VoWLAN technologies -- in
addition to more implementations in "carpeted office environments"
-- is to build up
security around wireless voice, allowing any industry using it
to feel confident that communications are being transmitted
securely.
Once the decisions were made, the next step became the
installation. One of the factors that Landry needed to consider was
deployment of the new VoIP system in conjunction with its Avaya TDM
switch, tying together the two switches with their internal T1
lines. Running both switches, he said, allowed him to retain
existing technology at the hospital and continue using it to
provide an alternate route for phone calls in case of an emergency
outage. Essentially, the TDM switch was considered a
disaster-relief phone switch.
Discussing other ways Swedish Medical Center is looking to fully
utilise its wireless network, Landry said: "By requiring a
well-developed IP network for our voice communications system and
EMAR system, we are now in place to move ahead a planned renovation
of the Nurse Call as the Homodynamic Monitoring system and alarm
management and integrating it in with our phone system. We will
also be able to provide Internet services to both our patients and
guests."
To ensure that a wireless voice system runs smoothly, Landry
recommended the creation of a multi-disciplinary team to outline
the needs of all work groups that will be affected by the
implementation. Formalising the selection process and creating an
effective way to measure the success of the system are equally
important.
"The deployment of a VoIP system, while [providing] several
advantages, is not a small undertaking," Landry said.
"Identification of the issues and goals was critical to keeping
everyone on track."