Wireless VoIP benefits being frustrated in healthcare: study

The solution is for hospitals to take a big picture approach to the details of wireless VoIP deployments. Wireless voice networks have different design requirements than wireless data: networks have to be pervasive, with enough bandwidth to support shifting user populations, with signal quality to ensure voice calls are clear and strong.

In the same way, nurses and doctors need to be included in the design of the workflow processes that will be changed or introduced with wireless communications. Those processes may require new policies, procedures, guidelines and protocols to protect patient care, while enabling staff to deal with questions from colleagues and with emergencies.

In a user case study commissioned by InnerWireless, a vendor of in-building distributed antenna systems, Malkary examined a comprehensive wireless deployment at a new critical care hospital at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Richmond, Va. The new unit incorporated InnerWireless' antenna system to support data, voice, and eventually telemetry over Wi-Fi and cellular connections. There was, Malkary says, extensive consultation with nursing staff at the very outset, so that both infrastructure and workflow would meet their real-world requirements.

(The case study is available on the InnerWireless Web site, "titled "Nursing staff redefines workflow and embraces all things wireless at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center." Registration is required to download the document.)

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