Hospital shifts to wireless technology

The wireless LAN will not interfere with medical equipment, says vendor

Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust has installed a wireless environment to allow clinical staff to access information while on the move around the hospital.

The wireless local area network gives doctors the ability to perform clinical procedures and access patient information anywhere in the hospital. The technology from Alcatel-Lucent was installed by networking and security integrator Khipu Networks.

"Patients, doctors and nurses are always on the move around hospitals. To apply a static technology to such an environment seems wrong," said Graham Everson, director of IT and telecommunications at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust.

The Trust is fitting the wireless system around software delivered as part of the National Programme for IT to help the sites move towards an entirely paperless environment for all clinical, managerial and administrative records by 2011.

The wireless network will also be used to deliver sensitive data such as X-ray images, pathology results and cardiovascular imaging to 300 staff equipped with tablet PCs and mobile clinical assistants.

Employees will also be able to use scanners to pick up information directly from
patient wristbands to display on the screen.

Everson claimed that the system is absolutely secure. "People assume that information flying about in the air rather than in hard wires is less secure," he said. "That is absolutely not the case. ­We are compliant with Department of Health security standards."

The Trust also has a plan to fit all equipment with RFID tags to be able to easily locate the necessary machines.

Royal Brompton is one of very few acute trusts trialling a wireless environment. St Mary's, Paddington has conducted similar trials.

Research (PDF) carried out by the Dutch scientific institute TNO last year found that wireless LANs can interfere with some medical equipment at close distances. It recommended that antennae are kept more than 10cm from medical apparatus.

Matt Ashman, commercial consultant at Khipu Networks, responsible for deploying the Alcatel-Lucent solution at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, said the deployed equipment is fully tested and compliant with current standards.

"It is fully compliant with the TUV Rheinland EN 60601 standard, which relates
to the safe use of medical electrical equipment, as well as tackling issues such as electromagnetic compatibility," he said.