News Feature | March 14, 2014

Wireless Networking One Of Providers' Top Priorities

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Wireless Networking Healthcare

Upcoming Motion Computing webinar to feature tips on designing the right wireless network

Health IT Outcomes editor-in-chief Ken Congdon will be moderating a webinar hosted by Motion Computing at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 19. The focus of this presentation will be wireless networking and how it must be adapted specifically for a healthcare or clinical environment.

According to Motion Computing, clinical and hospital settings require a unique approach to wireless networking - it’s not one size fits all. Since wireless networking finished as one of the top ten important IT initiatives in a Health IT Outcomes reader survey, it’s important to learn how a network tailored to your organization is beneficial.

Motion Computing’s David Mackie writes the entire ecosystem of a hospital must be considered when designing a wireless network. This includes:

  • Physical Building Considerations - This can be the most challenging of any of the areas of consideration due to the way those hospitals; especially older hospitals have been built.
  • End User Considerations - In today’s hospitals almost everyone wants to use the wireless network. It is surprising how many of these users are not taken into account when providing performance baselines for the network design.
  • Device Considerations - There are a whole array of devices that use the wireless network, both fixed and mobile and they all have an effect on how the network performs.
  • Network Use Considerations - One of the factors that needs to be considered is how the wireless network affects the overall performance of the rest of the network.

Another key point of the upcoming webinar will be the success story of Barnabas Health, one organization that has benefitted from unique network design.

In response to last year’s HIMSS Analytics survey of hospital IT leaders, Karen Schmidt, VP of enterprise marketing for Comcast said, “As the healthcare industry becomes increasingly focused on utilizing technology to improve patient care, health IT leaders are examining their network infrastructures to ensure they have a strong, reliable and scalable foundation.”

 “A key challenge will be keeping pace with the growing number of mobile devices entering the market while maintaining secure access and providing the performance to deliver vast amounts of healthcare data.”

Register for the webinar HERE