Largest Safety-Net Hospital in New England Upgrades to 802.11ac Across Four-City Block Campus, Tests Aruba’s Meridian Mobile App Platform for Wayfinding and Patient Services
HIMSS15--Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN) today announced that Boston
Medical Center (BMC), a private, not-for-profit, 482-bed, academic
medical center in Boston, MA., is deploying Aruba’s 802.11ac and mobile
app solutions to enable a campus-wide Gigabit wireless network with
indoor location services that will benefit physicians, staff and
patients.
With more than 26,064 admissions and 874,770 patient visits in the last
year, BMC is undergoing a major clinical campus redesign project, which
will include expanding wireless coverage and upgrading to 802.11ac in
all 30 existing buildings, as well as the renovated and expanded Menino
Pavilion, Yawkey Center and Moakley Buildings. In addition, the Medical
Center plans to implement Aruba’s Meridian mobile app platform to allow
physicians, staff, patients and visitors to more easily find their way
around campus, as well as access important information and services.
As part of the clinical campus redesign, BMC, which also serves as the
teaching hospital for Boston University School of Medicine, will
consolidate its campus into a smaller footprint for more efficient
operations. A key part of this project is the network upgrade that will
accommodate the increase in new wireless and mobile devices and new
applications coming onto the network, a transition from the hospital’s
multiple outdated Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems to a new, one
record, EPIC system, and support for the more than 450 laptops on mobile
carts that doctors and nurses are using throughout the medical center to
record patient data.
“We’re seeing about 3,000 devices on the network every day,” said Craig
Reise, manager of Network Infrastructure and Engineering for Boston
Medical Center. “These include medical devices such as handheld
glucometers for blood sugar readings, infusion pumps, lab specimen
collection and barcode printing systems, as well as the personal mobile
devices of staff, physicians and of course, our patients and visitors.
With the number of these devices growing at a rapid clip, we need to be
sure that our wireless infrastructure can handle both the density and
variety of devices on the network without sacrificing performance.”
In addition, Reise noted that BMC wanted to eliminate “dead zones” as
well as deliver pervasive coverage across all of its facilities
including challenging areas like the lead-lined walls of the radiology
rooms. “In an environment like ours, wireless LAN design and testing is
critical to ensuring success and pervasive wireless coverage,” he said.
“And having that highly reliable, pervasive coverage is key to making
sure that doctors and nurses can get patient information quickly and
from anywhere in the hospital – whether at a station or bedside with a
mobile cart – as well as locate the equipment they need for their
patients’ care as quickly as possible. Exceptional patient care is
always the end goal.”
According to Reise, BMC had previously used Aruba gear and when it came
time to upgrade the network, there was no question that Aruba would
continue to be their wireless networking partner. The Medical Center is
deploying Aruba 220
Series 802.11ac Access Points, 7200
Series Mobility Controllers, AirWave
network management and the ClearPass
Access Management solution for mobile device authentication and
access.
“Aruba was a great partner in helping us through design, planning and
implementation,” said Reise. “In a working hospital, you can’t afford to
have disruption of services to patients, so planning ahead to ensure
that access points were placed in the right locations, for example, was
crucial to a smooth transition and roll-out, and Aruba helped us through
all of these stages.” Reise also noted that BMC relies heavily on
AirWave for visibility and troubleshooting of the network. “We don’t
have a dedicated IT staff just for wireless so a network management tool
like AirWave saves us a great deal of time and energy when it comes to
viewing and isolating any network issues.”
With over 1,100 802.11ac devices already Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™, BMC’s upgrade
ensures greater speeds and higher reliability for the myriad of devices
on their network, and can enable better efficiencies for clinicians and
technical staff, alike. BMC is using the network to transmit EKG orders
and results, send infusion device drug library updates to more than
1,000 devices, and send vital sign and ventilator data to their EMR.
With these capabilities, staff receive information in a more timely and
accurate manner and reduce the manual effort previously required to
update and maintain these systems that are so critical to patient care.
BMC also plans to use the wireless infrastructure as the foundation for
applications like asset tracking to keep track of important and valuable
hospital equipment such as wheelchairs and infusion pumps.
BMC also plans to launch Aruba’s Meridian mobile app platform to deliver
wayfinding capabilities. According to Reise, navigating BMC’s large
campus is a challenge even for hospital staff who sometimes have trouble
locating departments they may not frequent. With the Meridian mobile app
platform, BMC can roll out their own mobile application to help both
staff and visitors find their way from one department or building to
another using indoor navigation technology.
“The new wireless infrastructure gives us the foundation we need to
accommodate the ever-increasing number of both medical and mobile
devices, as well as new applications that can make our staff’s jobs
easier and improve the care and satisfaction of our patients and
visitors,” said Reise. “With the new Aruba Gigabit Wi-Fi network, we’re
confident that we can continue to deliver on the needs of our employees
and our patients.”
Aruba will be demonstrating its 802.11ac and mobile app solutions at the
HIMSS15 annual conference and exhibition in Chicago, IL, April 12-15,
2015, booth 1853.
About Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center is a private, not-for-profit, 482-bed, academic
medical center that is the primary teaching affiliate of Boston
University School of Medicine. It is the largest and busiest provider of
trauma and emergency services in New England. Committed to providing
high-quality health care to all, the hospital offers a full spectrum of
pediatric and adult care services including primary and family medicine
and advanced specialty care with an emphasis on community-based care.
Boston Medical Center offers specialized care for complex health
problems and is a leading research institution, receiving more than $118
million in sponsored research funding in fiscal year 2014. It is the 11th
largest recipient of funding in the U.S. from the National Institutes of
Health among independent hospitals. In 1997, BMC founded Boston Medical
Center Health Plan, Inc., now one of the top ranked Medicaid MCOs in the
country, as a non-profit managed care organization. It does business in
Massachusetts as BMC HealthNet Plan and as Well Sense Health Plan in New
Hampshire, serving more than 315,000 people, collectively. Boston
Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine are partners in
the Boston HealthNet – 14 community health centers focused on providing
exceptional health care to residents of Boston. For more information,
please visit http://www.bmc.org.
About Aruba Networks, Inc.
Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access
solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company designs and delivers
Mobility-Defined Networks that empower IT departments and #GenMobile, a
new generation of tech-savvy users who rely on their mobile devices for
every aspect of work and personal communication. To create a mobility
experience that #GenMobile and IT can rely upon, Aruba Mobility-Defined
Networks™ automate infrastructure-wide performance optimization and
trigger security actions that used to require manual IT intervention.
The results are dramatically improved productivity and lower operational
costs.
Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in
Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas,
Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more,
visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.
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Aruba Networks, Inc.
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Director of Corporate Communications
pradda@arubanetworks.com
or
LSH Communications for Aruba Networks
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Principal
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