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Replies to post #7048 on Remote Dynamics Inc (RMTD)
"We wanted to have one thing that would serve multiple purposes," Brooks said. "We looked at different ways to do this, and they all involved implementing a real-time network."
The first thought, Brooks said, was to deploy a collection of Cisco Systems wireless access points to connect to a switch on each floor to provide overlapping coverage throughout the building. While this solution appeared fairly simple and economical, he said it posed a problem in terms of irregular service and substantial maintenance down the line.
"If one access point would break, you would lose coverage throughout an area of the hospital," Brooks said.
He eventually selected InnerWireless, of Richardson, Texas, to deploy a broadband distribution system. Unlike a collection of separate wireless access points, InnerWireless broadband distribution system supports a wide range of wireless applications on a single infrastructure. The system also offers uniform wireless coverage and facilitates the addition of future applications and devices to the network.
"We looked at different solutions, and all involved implementing a real-time network," Brooks said. The advantage InnerWireless system offered was that it would require fewer access points to be installed, while still providing continuous coverage throughout the hospital to eliminate dead spots.
Ed Jungerman, senior vice president for marketing and product management at InnerWireless, equates his companys network to a heating ventilation system that distributes air uniformly throughout a building.
"It unifies a range of wireless signals and frequencies," Jungerman said. Because the system is passive rather than active, it works without electrical components that are typically needed to convert radio signals.
"Active systems cannot carry the whole set of radio signals in one piece of electronics," Jungerman said. "They are more cumbersome and costly."
InnerWireless systems are custom-designed to meet the requirements of different buildings. Typically, there is a wireless portal that rests in the basement and is connected to cable that runs up the spine of the building, as well as a distribution system for each floor.
As Childrens Memorial prepared for this improved network, it upgraded the technology that nurses used to keep records of the drugs they administered to patients. Brooks said he wanted a solution that would not saddle health workers with cumbersome equipment or make their jobs more difficult.
Under the new system, each time nurses get ready to administer drugs, they can scan the bar codes on medication bags and record them on the thin clients attached to their carts. The data is then automatically sent back to a central computer, which confirms it is the right medication being administered at the right time to the right patient. The Childrens Memorial pharmacy, one of the more modern parts of the hospital, routinely bar-codes the medication it sends out, so all the hospital had to do was install equipment on the other end that could read the codes.
Hospitals are completely unprepared to comply with the FDAs bar-code mandates. Click here to read more.
Costs of the new equipment and the installation, totaling approximately $500,000, were about twice what it would have cost to install a new network based on multiple access points. Brooks said the hospital is hoping to recoup some of these costs by avoiding follow--up maintenance.
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