The Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust has deployed an
Alcatel-Lucent wireless local area network (Wlan) to help
transform clinical care and enable total mobility of its patient
services.
Alcatel-Lucent's wireless network, which was installed by
networking and security integrator Khipu Networks, gives Trust
employees the ability to perform clinical procedures and access
patient information anywhere in the Trust, which specialises in
heart and lung treatment
The system also supports the organisation's goal of providing
"paper-light" electronic access to all clinical, managerial and
administrative records by 2010/2011.
Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, which comprises two
hospitals 20 miles apart at Chelsea and Uxbridge, London, will use
the wireless network to deliver sensitive data that requires
resilience, security and speed - such as x-ray images, patient
monitoring information, pathology results and cardiovascular
imaging.
It allows the staff, equipped with Tablet PCs, to record medical
information direct from patients' wristbands or at their bedsides,
and transmit it into a central database, crucial in ensuring fast
and accurate patient identification and diagnosis.
"Hospitals operate in a totally mobile way. Clinicians, nurses
and patients are continually on the move, and in order to deliver
effective care, staff must be granted universal access to patient
data," said Graham Everson, director of IT and telecommunications
at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust.
"Wireless technology perfectly supports the core clinical
functions of a hospital, and thus forms the bedrock of our IT
strategy. Most importantly, it is an enabler - on top of it, you
can build layers of device and functionality to make day to day
operations more dynamic and flexible, reducing patient risk in the
process," said Everson.