Infotech Lead America: Rex Healthcare, a member of UNC Health Care in Raleigh, North Carolina, has deployed a wireless network based on the Aruba Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE) architecture to deliver access to the organization’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and wireless patient monitoring devices.
The network also supports Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) by enabling employees to connect to the network on their personal smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
“Aruba’s solution, with the AirWave Management System and centralized controllers, made deployment and management easy and allowed us to build the redundancy we needed into the solution,” said Bryan Safrit, senior network architect for Rex Healthcare.
“We can use the device fingerprinting enabled by Aruba OS to distinguish easily between, for example, a credentialed doctor using an iPhone to access critical patient information and a guest in the waiting room, watching Netflix on his or her iPad,” Safrit added.
Accommodating a number of wireless medical devices accessing Rex Healthcare’s network including blood glucose meters, specimen collection devices, EKG equipment, PACS transmission equipment and IV pumps, was also a key driver for the network upgrade.
Additionally, Rex offers a wireless guest network used by patients, guests and co-workers. To satisfy all of these needs, Rex deployed four Aruba 3000 and 6000 Series Mobility Controllers, 408 Aruba access points including the AP-125s, AP-105s, AP-93s and AP-135s, and the AirWave Management System.
In addition to the current wireless deployment, Rex is also evaluating Aruba’s Remote Access Point (RAP) solution to enable mobile mammography and mobile blood collection units.
“Aruba is gaining significant traction amongst healthcare organizations that are recognizing how a secure, reliable wireless infrastructure can not only lower costs and improve productivity, but can deliver substantial improvements in patient care,” said Gerard Festa, director of healthcare solutions marketing for Aruba Networks.
