CORNWALL, Ontario – Hundreds of newly-installed Wi-Fi access points have been introduced at the Cornwall Community Hospital.
Through a partnership with Meru Networks, CCH now offers one of the most sophisticated and powerful Wi-Fi systems permitting patients and staff to have the world literally at their fingertips.
The new system, dubbed the Uninterrupted Care Network (UCN), has enabled CCH to move towards the implementation of a fully-integrated clinical system, making patients’ electronic health records accessible from any mobile device.
“This will be the foundational infrastructure we need to support and sustain our information management, information technology strategic plans,” said Mario Alibrando, Director of IT. “There is nothing more frustrating than going somewhere without Wi-Fi.”
With more bandwidth and about 20 times the speed than one would have in a local restaurant or café, Alibrando explained that this system was designed specifically to meet the needs of busy healthcare organizations.
“With this solution, we are able to keep medical devices, like IV pumps, on separate frequency channels, so the information is streamlined directly to the database. This will facilitate our initiatives moving forward,” he added.
The system is also built with a secondary mainframe, so if for some reason the main system were to go offline, the back-up system would automatically detect it and turn itself on.
“Anytime you’re dealing with any sort of critical electronics, having an extra level of preparedness and substructure is invaluable,” said Alan Greig, VP of Support Services.
