Understanding the Alternatives Is Key - Technology Information

Health Management Technology, Jan, 2001 by Jim Welch

Recently adopted interoperability standards bring Ethernet-equivalent wireless network capabilities to a variety of devices including mobile computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), Internet protocol (IP) phones and mobile medical devices. At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission has issued a new ruling that will require the displacement of all medical telemetry devices from the traditional TV and mobile radio bands to new spectrum space.

If properly deployed as part of a long-term strategy, the technologies hold the potential to significantly improve staff productivity and communication, while at the same time dramatically improve patient safety and quality of care. However, if improperly deployed, these wireless technologies will add costs and complexity to an already overtaxed system.

Central to a long-range wireless strategy is the adoption of standards-based communications infrastructure along with the consolidation of various applications onto a single integrated network. The technologies are available today to support a single wireless network that is reliable and robust, and can support mobile computing, wireless PDAs, IP telephony and medical telemetry. The IEEE 802.11 standards make this possible.

Without careful planning, hospital administration may deploy proprietary wireless networks for individual applications that will not interoperate and may actually be redundant or overlapping. For example, the FCC ruling provides for a dedicated medical telemetry band in the UHF channel 37 spectrum. This spectrum space does not have communications standards and does not have the capacity to allow other applications to share the spectrum. Moving current medical telemetry to this band will be expensive and not necessarily reliable. An alternative is available to use the standards-based wireless LAN band for medical telemetry devices. Using wireless standards-based networks offers the advantages of lower capital and operating costs as well as scalability to meet future applications as they are identified.

Wireless networks are a strategic resource for the hospital of the future. Failure to create a long-term plan can result in unnecessary costs and lost opportunity to improve productivity and quality of care.

Contributed by Jim Welch, vice president and general manager of Flexible Monitoring, Welch Allyn Protocol, Inc. Contact him at glenyces@protocol.com.