Healthcare Solutions

 
Healthcare might provide the ultimate example of why wireless networks must support mission and life critical applications. Efficient, reliable IT systems help to save lives by providing the infrastructure to support mission critical communication,  patient data safety (EMR), medical error reduction, and compassionate care delivery throughout the facility. Simply consider the importance of providing real-time patient data to the myriad of devices and clinicians at the bedside and it’s easy to immediately understand why wireless LANS (WLANs) are being extensively implemented in medical facilities. This combined with the explosive growth in wirelessly enabled devices shows that the wave of communication systems convergence is sweeping through healthcare to the benefit of us all. The Meru Mobile Scale solution is uniquely suited for the bandwidth-intensive, real-time applications where communications and application delivery are life critical.  

Purpose Built for Healthcare

• Toll-Quality voice over Wireless – Assuring critical application delivery to every clinician
• Seamless Mobility – Improving productivity and device adoption across the facility – no matter the size
• EMR, Secure Communications – HIPAA & JCAHO compliant, ensuring data security
• All Wireless Hospital – Extensible to the growing demand for wireless applications and devices
• Lowest total Cost of Ownership – Easy to manage, support and operate – saving money and resources

Meru Networks focuses on three types of facilities, each unique in their requirements.

Acute Care Hospitals
Providing care to the acutely ill, these facilities rely on their wireless infrastructure for emergency preparedness and maximum flexibility. Treating conditions resulting from disease, trauma, or as a result of a surgical procedure, these hospitals often have large clinical staffs and systems that require constant communications, seamless mobility, predictable performance, and assured application delivery. Providing wireless connectivity for the ER, surgery, ICU, obstetrics, and cardiology area are critical for the immediate care of acutely ill patients. Where time matters, Meru’s award-winning fourth generation wireless system provides the infrastructure needed to support these critical life-saving facilities.

Sub-Acute Hospitals and Clinics
Dealing with extended or longer term stays then the acute hospitals, these facilities provide services such as short term rehabilitation, intravenous therapy, wound management, cardiac rehabilitation, psychiatric care, and longer term assistance for patients. Here, numerous members of the clinical staff will come in contact with the patient during their stay and compassionate bedside care is critical to the eventual recovery and release of patients. Wirelessly enabled medical devices such as telemetry, infusion pumps, computers on wheels (COWs), Physicians Order Entry (CPOE), and other Point of Care (POC) applications and appliances are used to provide the ultimate in care for the patient. By bringing care to the bed side, wirelessly-connected tablet PCs, handheld devices, and other medical devices help eliminate costly errors by providing the latest information (some EMR based) in a seamless yet secure wireless environment.

Ambulatory Facilities
Normally providing preventative, diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical, or rehabilitative outpatient care, these facilities have similar needs as many of the acute care facilities, but with a far less sense of urgency. Ambulatory, or “Walk In” clinics and facilities tend to be more Out-Patient based, serving patients for periods of time, typically under 24 hours. Many conduct surgical procedures and have recovery rooms and beds requiring Point of Care and other bed-side applications. Often associated with major hospitals, doctors frequently roam between these smaller facilities and the larger acute care hospitals. Whether the largest acute hospital or a supporting clinic, Meru’s technology spans the entire need of healthcare, offering the seamless mobility in the most demanding of service environments.

Benefits of Meru Wireless LAN Technology for Healthcare

While others have created WLAN switch architectures, they focus primarily on ease of deployment and central management of AP configuration parameters. Solving this problem is both important and necessary, but it is not enough. The key challenge to being able to provide the type of reliable, high-quality wireless communication that will improve patient care and reduce medical errors is managing contention, interference, and Quality of Service in a dense Wi-Fi environment with both data and voice clients. Meru has done just that with its wireless System.

Designed for Quality Wireless Communication
Meru Networks’ patented Air Traffic Control technology™ delivers over-the-air QoS, predictable performance, and roaming with no connection loss to reliably support landline quality wireless VoIP without interrupting mobile data applications. Up to 30 concurrent calls per access point are supported—a 500% increase over other WLAN products. The Meru WLAN system works with standard Wi-Fi clients and supports 802.11 wireless phones.

Reliable Connectivity for Higher Densities of Clients
With Meru's Wireless LAN System, wireless access to the rich clinical data in a CPR coupled with real-time wireless VoIP communication will remove impediments to computer-based physician order entry and patient care. The value of Meru's patented Air Traffic Control technology only grows as CPR vendors broaden the penetration of their PDA-based extensions to their application suites, vastly increasing the number of users the wireless infrastructure must support.

E(z)RF Eliminates Channel Planning
A healthcare facility’s high density of clients, unique building topologies with multiple enclosed operating rooms, labs, and long hallways create a challenging environment for wireless LAN deployment. Other wireless LAN solutions require complex channel planning in an attempt to avoid co-channel interference, which can add significantly to installation time and cost. Meru eliminates the problems of co-channel interference and greatly simplifies this process with Virtual Cell technology, allowing Meru Access Points to be simply placed in the best positions to ensure complete coverage and reliable communication.