Royal Brompton & Harefield selects Alcatel-Lucent for network transformation

Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust has deployed an Alcatel-Lucent wireless local area network to form the core component of its IT strategy, which aims to transform clinical care and enable total mobility of its patient services.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, its wireless network, which was installed by UK-based networking and security integrator Khipu Networks, will give the trust employees the ability to perform clinical procedures and access patient information anywhere in the hospital, as well as supporting the organization's goal of providing 'paper-light' electronic access to all clinical, managerial and administrative records by 2010/2011.

Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, which comprises two hospitals at Chelsea and Uxbridge, London, serves more than 80,000 outpatients and 26,000 inpatients each year from the UK and overseas, and employs more than 2,500 staff.

The Trust will utilize the wireless network to deliver sensitive data such as x-ray images, patient monitoring information, pathology results and cardiovascular imaging. It is expected to enable the staff, equipped with Tablet PCs such as Mobile Clinical Assistants, to record medical information direct from patients' wristbands or at their bedsides, and transmit it into a central database, crucial in ensuring fast and accurate patient identification and diagnosis.

The wireless network, which is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniAccess WLAN technology, will complement and support the Trust’s existing Alcatel-Lucent fixed data infrastructure.

Graham Everson, director of IT and telecommunications at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, said: Wireless technology perfectly supports the core clinical functions of a hospital, and thus forms the bedrock of our IT strategy. Most importantly, it is an enabler - on top of it, you can build layers of device and functionality to make day to day operations more dynamic and flexible, reducing patient risk in the process.

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