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Hospitals have been one of the early adopters for wireless
communication and keep expanding its uses.
Thenation’s medical facilities have some of the most mobile workers in thecountry, turning the health care industry into one of the earlyadopters of wireless technologies.
Hospitals have predominatelyturned to Wi-Fi networks to provide in-building data coverage whereverdoctors and nurses are, and increasingly where mobile equipment andother assets are located. ABI Research says about 82% of the hospitalsin the United States have Wi-Fi networks, or 6,161 of the 7,526hospitals.
| | Using a Motion C5 mobile clinical
assistant, medical personnel can
combine documentation, administer
medication and take pictures.
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Buthospitals also are looking for more than just networking, according toBen Gibson, senior director of mobility solutions for Cisco. He saysthey are increasingly asking for specific applications and servicesthat can run on their Wi-Fi networks to make them more useful andprovide better care for patients.
Several companies announcedproducts and services aiming at that need at the Healthcare Informationand Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in late February, oneof the largest IT shows for health care. Cisco, a leading networkingvendor for the hospitals, announced targeted applications for itsMobility Healthcare Solutions portfolio. The company also revealed anumber of companies certified under its Cisco Compatible Extensionsprogram.
“We’re taking an industry-specific approach” to wirelessnetworking, Gibson says, “with more integration solutions and not justnetworking. Our mobility solutions are fully integrated with medicalsystems and equipment, enabling these professionals to quickly respond,diagnose, collaborate and treat patients at the point of care.”
| | Gibson: Hospitals are
looking for specific
applications to help
with patient care.
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Oneof the enhancement Cisco showed at HIMSS was the use of its Wi-Filocation capabilities and RFID tags to locate personnel and equipment.Gibson says Cisco can track equipment if it has a Wi-Fi radio or anRFID tag. Wi-Fi provides room-level accuracy while RFID can be moreprecise. Tags are used for a wide variety of tracking purposes,including keeping track of newborn infants in a maternity ward. Gibsoncautions that babies aren’t being tracked yet, but it is possible byhaving an RFID wristband.
One of Cisco’s partners, AeroScout, hasbeen endorsed by the American Hospital Association for Wi-Fi-based RFIDtracking. AeroScout has a number of other health care-focused productsunder its Healthcare Visibility Suite, including its recent wirelesstemperature monitoring application. Tracking temperatures in drug andother containers is among the standards set by health care regulatoryorganizations, so being able to monitor them wirelessly saves onpersonnel time.
MEDICAL OPTIONS
AeroScout’s productuses Wi-Fi RFID tags with integrated temperature sensors and softwareto log and act on temperature data. The same tags and infrastructurecan be used for other purposes, such as asset tracking. The tags areplaced inside refrigerators, freezers and deep freezers that containitems such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals, tissues, blood bags, organsand patient test results. The tags automatically send temperaturereadings over a Wi-Fi network to AeroScout’s MobileView software. Ifthe temperature exceeds or goes below a set threshold, an alert istriggered and sent to hospital staff.
Cisco’s Gibson says RFIDtags have become cheaper, still in the $20 range for “active” tags thatautomatically send data, but their cost can be justified for high-valueequipment because of the savings in efficiencies, staff time and howquickly they can be deployed.
InnerWireless also has a locationplatform for hospitals under its PanGo Platform. PanGo’s technologymakes location data and other sensory information available to a numberof handheld devices and is certified for Cisco’s 7921G wireless IPphone. Caregivers can use these devices to track patients, medicaldevices and monitor temperatures.
Two other companies, Ascom andInfoLogix, also recently partnered on an asset and personnel trackingsolution using InfoLogix’s RFID technology and Ascom’s i875 Wi-Fihandset and messaging suite. The companies say the solution givesclinicians immediate access to integrated voice and data to locate thenearest resource at all times, whether it is a defibrillator, infusionpump, anesthesiologist or security officer.
Cisco also recentlycertified three devices for its networking infrastructure, the IntermecCV30 for health care supply chain uses, Motion Computing’s C5 foraccess to patient records at the point of care, and the SoMo650 formedication administration.
The eight hospital and care centersthat are part of the Orlando Regional Healthcare are among thefacilities using Cisco’s health care mobility system, Gibson says. AlexVeletsos. Orlando Regional’s chief technology officer, says the systemhas a direct effect on patient care.
“Our wireless network trulyimpacts patient care,” he says. “All of our clinical information,electronic medical records, and even our employee payroll, humanresources and purchasing information can be accessed via the wirelessnetwork. The network allows our staff to become more efficient andproductive, which results in improvements across the board, and mostimportantly with the care of our patients.”
The president and CEOof InnerWireless, Ed Cantwell, says the need for hospital staff andphysicians to communicate and get data anywhere is bringing about aconvergence of technologies.
“Whether it’s using their smartphoneto order tests from the bedside, or staying in touch with theirpractice while on rounds at the hospital, clinicians need everywhere,anytime access that only wireless solutions can provide,” he says,adding that wireless health care technology can enhance efficiencywhile also improving patient care, safety and satisfaction.” |
发表于 2008-4-28 02:59:10
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