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First, Full 802.11ac Wave 2 Hospital Network in Canada Increases Patient Safety, Improves Staff Productivity, and Enables Future IoT and Wayfinding Use Cases

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE:HPE), today announced that Scarborough and Rouge Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has implemented a new Aruba gigabit wireless network to bring better efficiencies to nurses and physicians in order to improve patient outcomes. The new wireless network – which is the first complete Wave 2 hospital deployment in Canada – will also ensure that the hospital can accommodate future use cases and applications including Internet of Things (IoT) and indoor location services.

On December 1, 2016, The Scarborough Hospital’s Birchmount and General sites merged with Rouge Valley Health System’s Centenary site to form Scarborough and Rouge Hospital. The new organization has more than 5,000 staff, 1,000 physicians, and 1,000 volunteers. A complete Wave 2 network is now available at the Birchmount and General sites, and the Centenary site is currently upgrading its Aruba-based wireless network to a new Wave 2 network.

Given the hospital’s growing requirements for mobility, the Information Services team determined it was the right time to upgrade the network infrastructure to meet both current and future needs. The hospital’s goals include: improving nursing staff productivity by allowing mobile workstations to be used at the bedside; increasing patient safety by ensuring that information can be inputted quickly and accurately; providing better patient and visitor experiences by delivering high performance wireless access from any location in the hospital; and, preparing for new use cases and future initiatives.

“With our previous wireless network, we encountered a number of limitations, including its inability to deliver the speed required to efficiently use newer mobile medical equipment, such as ultrasound devices for sending images, IV pumps for infusion data, and clocks for time updates,” said Gary Lam, Manager of Technical Services for Scarborough and Rouge Hospital’s Birchmount and General sites.

“Furthermore, with the assumption that we’ll connect even more devices in the future, and an expectation of our patients and physician groups that they can use the latest laptops, smartphones, and tablets, we needed to put in place a network that could handle the speed and density to accommodate all of these.”

Working with partner, TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU), Canada’s fastest-growing national telecommunications company, the hospital issued an RFP and conducted a competitive and comprehensive procurement process that included site surveys and some internal Proof of Concept (POC) trials, evaluating the existing infrastructure with the proposed Aruba solution.

With TELUS strategically designing the layout of the access point locations, providing technical implementation, and delivering professional and integration services, Scarborough and Rouge Hospital implemented an Aruba Mobile-First Platform that consists of Aruba 320 Series 802.11ac Wave 2 access points, Aruba Mobility Controllers, and AirWave Network Management. The hospital was already using the ClearPass Policy Manager for authentication of devices onto their network. With its new deployment, they are now considering using ClearPass for guest wireless access and BYOD onboarding. In addition, Scarborough and Rouge Hospital plans to deploy a full range of HPE core, top of rack, and edge switching solutions in its General and Birchmount sites.

“Aruba stood out to us by offering a solution that was leading in terms of technology,” Lam noted. “We also appreciated the integrated security in the Aruba Mobility Controllers and Access Points, which saved us the time and cost of purchasing and deploying additional layers.”

With the right foundation in place, Scarborough and Rouge Hospital can now look to add applications that will further empower its staff and improve patient satisfaction and outcomes. Some of the proposed initiatives are wayfinding to allow staff, patients, and visitors to navigate hospital facilities, patient kiosks, and asset tracking for wheelchairs, infusion pumps, and other medical equipment. For the latter applications, Lam said the Aruba APs with their built-in BLE beacons were a huge plus for the hospital.

“When we undertook this network overhaul, we wanted to be sure that whatever we deployed would not need to be ripped out and replaced in a few years,” said Lam. “Basically, we needed to prepare for anything the industry could throw at us for the next five years. Our Aruba network is helping us ensure that we’re ready to meet that challenge.”