CASE STUDY: LIVERPOOL WOMEN'S HOSPITAL

Liverpool Women's Hospital already had an established relationship with FastNetworks (UK) Ltd, a technology solutions provider specialising in addressing business needs with advanced technology.
Liverpool Women's Hospital wanted to implement Electronic Prescribing initially in a small part of the Hospital to test the viability of a roll out project throughout the Hospital. Michael Keefe, one of FastNetworks Design Engineers met with the IT Manager of Liverpool Women's Hospital to discuss the feasibility of the project and to discuss current and future applications to be run via the wireless solution.

During our initial site surveys, it was soon discovered that there were many sensitive areas within Liverpool Women's Hospital, i.e., the Hospital is a major Maternity and Gynaecological centre. It was therefore quickly established that the deployment of wireless would alleviate a number of access problems generally associated with conventional data connectivity via data cabling. Conventional networking via data cabling is very intrusive once the building is occupied. Installation at sites such as the Liverpool Women's Hospital are always difficult i.e., the Hospital operates 24 x 7, so out of hours working is not an option.

Therefore the networking solution is the deployment of Cisco Aironet Wireless, that once deployed would not only add mobility to IT applications, but would greatly reduce the moves, adds and changes associated with conventional data cabling.

Initially the Aironet 4000 series running at 2MB was deployed at Liverpool Women's Hospital, the access points being deployed in the voids above the Theatres, giving the Theatres IT connectivity without having to go into them.

Since the 4000 series, 340, 350 and the 1200 series access points have been installed, with all access points and clients working together seamlessly.
 

What is Electronic Prescribing?

Electronic Prescribing in a hospital is the name given to the recording of medicine prescribing and administration activities onto computer. It replaces the old way of recording those activities on handwritten drugs charts, a system that has been around probably since this type of record-keeping began, and certainly pre-dating the introduction of the National Heal Service over half a century ago.

The benefits of using modern technology in this way are enormous - no problems with indecipherable handwriting, auditing is simpler, records no longer need to be physically moved around a hospital to be shared, stock control is more accurate, decision support facilities can be integrated, and most importantly, it enables the introduction of an Integrated Care Record, an NHS target for 2008.

It is essential that the clinician attends the patient's bedside in order to prescribe and administer medication and is able to view and edit the patient's electronic health record in real time. It is without question that hardware such as Cisco's Aironet 350 series, radio network receivers have revolutionised the use of computers within the National Health Service.

In this hospital, it would not have been possible to introduce Electronic Prescribing without the sort of mobile technology solutions offered by companies like Cisco.

Paul Jones
IT Manager, Liverpool Women's Hospital

FastNetworks 2002