Virginia Commonwealth University Health System (VCUHS) will deploy Horizon, a Converged Wireless Solution of InnerWireles, in its new 385,000-square-foot Critical Care Hospital to ensure better wireless connectivity for mission- and life-critical applications.

 

It was announced by InnerWireless, Inc., a provider of converged wireless solutions, in a press release today. VCUHS, by using Horizon, can optimize its wireless ecosystem, which includes 802.11 a/b/g, wireless telemetry, cellular phones and PDAs, clinical carts, laptops, tablet PCs, pagers, and two-way radios.

 

"Our critical care units were previously in a small area, but the new hospital will be much more spread out. We wanted a guaranteed blanket of wireless coverage everywhere in our facility, so we turned to InnerWireless because they have a long track record of creating completely wireless healthcare environments," said Rich Pollack, VP and CIO of Virginia Commonwealth University Health System.

 

"Because the acuity of our patients is so high, it's imperative that our wireless infrastructure work at all times so clinicians can receive alerts, notifications and information about their patients in real-time via the numerous wireless devices that we will have in place. That requirement led us to InnerWireless because the underlying passive nature of their system has far fewer points of failure and requires less maintenance than other systems we considered," Pollack added.  

VCUHS has already started the process of educating physicians and nurses about new applications and process changes. The integration of Horizon with PatientKeeper Physician Information System will enable physicians to have better wireless access to lab and test results, medication histories, allergies, vital signs, and other important patient information at the point-of-care.

 

PDAs, smartphones, tablet PCs and clinical carts enable clinicians to spend more time at each patient's bedside with ready access to critical information for faster decision making and care delivery. At the Critical Care Hospital, Horizon will also give patients complete accessibility to nurses with VoIP phones, and clinicians can monitor patient vital signs from anywhere in the facility with wireless telemetry.

 

"InnerWireless specializes in optimizing wireless ecosystems for life-critical applications, and I can't think of a situation that relies on guaranteed wireless coverage more than a facility like the Critical Care Hospital at VCUHS," said Ed Cantwell (News - Alert), president, CEO and chairman of InnerWireless. "We look forward to being a powerful partner to VCUHS as they manage the convergence of the Wireless Wide Area Networks and Wireless Local Area Networks that deliver mission- and life-critical services throughout their facility, up to and including the edge where patient care is delivered."