Wireless VoIP system provides seamless roaming and improves staff productivity.

Gretchen Niehaus, manager of IT and telecom at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Ill., knew the advantages wireless mobility could provide to caregivers and other hospital staff. After all, the regional healthcare center had made an investment several years ago in 802.11b that allowed case managers to enter patient information into the electronic medical record system.

Using laptops, patient information could be entered directly, providing immediate updates to the patient record for other medical staff, as well as reducing errors formerly due to transcription of written records. After seeing the dramatic improvement in just this one area, Niehaus realized that a more pervasive wireless LAN that could support not just data, but also voice applications, would provide even greater benefits.

To provide voice mobility inside the hospital, St. John’s also had a wireless voice system that operated in the 1.9-GHz band. Newer, more advanced voice systems and the possibility of using a dualmode cellular/Wi-Fi phone led the team to look at new wireless LAN solutions, including those that supported 802.11a.

Founded in 1875 by the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, St. John’s Hospital serves central and southern Illinois. The hospital is licensed for more than 700 beds, making it the largest hospital in downstate Illinois, and one of the largest Catholic hospitals in the United States.

Niehaus’ task was to combine multiple data and voice applications onto a single network without degrading the quality of service for those using the phones. St. John’s selected Meru Networks after a lengthy and comprehensive evaluation process of multiple vendors. The initial rollout has worked so well, plans to expand the wireless LAN to cover the entire 12 floors of the hospital have been put in place. A return-on-investment analysis was completed and the resulting economic advantages were compelling.

“The system is working so well, we are regularly receiving unsolicited requests to expand it to additional areas and applications,” says Niehaus. “It hasn’t been hard to justify either. Using only selected nurses saving 30 minutes per day, we expect the system to save us $2 million dollars in just its first year. That doesn’t even include the additional savings we expect for respiratory therapists, lab technicians and dieticians when they come online.”

At completion, more than 400 access points will be deployed, as well as additional applications, such as a more extensive electronic medical record system, barcode scanning for accurate inventory control and care delivery, guest and patient Internet access, and RFID for asset tracking.

To evaluate the wireless LAN systems, a lab was set up to provide a separate environment for testing the different applications. Products from multiple vendors were tested against two main criteria:

• support for multiple virtual LANs (VLAN) with multiple security settings for the different applications and users; and

• support for seamless roaming of voice clients across access points and subnets, with no degradation of voice quality.

“When we brought other wireless LAN systems into the test lab, we noticed they dropped the voice-over-Wi-Fi calls as they roamed,” says Niehaus. “As voice clients roamed, they had to re-authenticate with the access points, which would drop the call. Even centrally managed wireless switch systems that claimed support for seamless roaming across the access points dropped the call if the client roamed from one switch to another.

“The Meru wireless LAN system was the only one that provided seamless roaming for voice clients, with no loss in quality or dropped calls. And, it supports up to 64 separate VLANs with individual security settings, so it was no problem to deploy multiple applications and users on the same infrastructure.”

The wireless LAN is currently installed on the first four floors of St. John’s Hospital, with 120 access points providing mobile connectivity for voice and data applications, and a redundant controller in place to ensure the highest availability. One of the key attributes that attracted St. John’s to the system was that no site survey was required. Meru accomplishes this process with virtual cell technology, which eliminates co- and cross-channel interference.

With the issue of co-channel interference resolved, the access points are placed in the best locations to ensure complete coverage. Complex three-dimensional site plans to ensure that access points on the floor above or below are on different channels are no longer necessary.

For voice communications, St. John’s has chosen Vocera Communications Badges, which deliver quick, easy communications among caregivers and other hospital staff. Niehaus plans to expand to 300 Vocera Badges.

In addition to the voice and case-management applications, the hospital has also moved its surgery information system to the wireless network. Prior to that, operating room nurses would do pre-operative checks on the patient and then move to another area to transcribe the information into the system. Now, carts with laptops can be wheeled right into the operating room and the information can be entered directly, saving valuable time and reducing mistakes.

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