Winthrop: A University Hospital Case Study

Pushing the Paperwork Away

by Michelle Gervais

Patience is a virtue, but very few people have patience for paperwork. At most hospitals, paperwork is an unwelcome but necessary component of the admission process. At Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, New York, however, paperwork for patients arriving in the Emergency Department has been vastly reduced thanks to wireless networking from Proxim.

After checking in at the registration desk in Winthrop’s Emergency Department, the patient sees the triage nurse who assesses his or her condition. The patient is then brought into the appropriate treatment area for further examination and diagnosis by a physician, bypassing the usual stop at the registration desk. With the patient in the treatment area, the registrar visits the patient’s bedside with a laptop computer equipped with a Proxim RangeLAN2 wireless network interface card to take the patient’s insurance information and complete the registration process. This new system benefits both patients and hospital staff – patients because the registration procedure is streamlined and handled in the privacy of the treatment area, and staff because they are able to enter information directly into a computer. This eliminates the time-consuming task of transcribing written notes and re-entering them into the computer. It also eliminates the risk of transcription errors.

The Emergency Department isn’t the only area of the hospital benefiting from the installation of this wireless network. The eight-bed day surgery admitting unit is also equipped with a wireless computer.

“This is a relatively small, quick turn-around unit,” according to Larry Maggiotto, Winthrop University Hospital’s Chief Information Officer. “With the laptop, physicians and nurses can enter pharmacy orders, request laboratory tests, look up test results, and complete paperwork while at the patient’s bedside.”

Winthrop is also running a wireless program at the hospital’s busiest inpatient nursing unit. Nurses equipped with five wireless laptops can access the Hospital’s network and input patient information while making rounds on their floor. “It is much more convenient for nurses to be able to order medication, services, or access test results from the patient’s bedside rather than the nursing station,” said Maggiotto.

For example, the nurse can request blood test results wirelessly. Laboratory technicians enter the results of blood tests into the hospital’s network, and the nurse on the unit can access the information directly via wireless computers.

“The staff experiences increased mobility as a result of using the wireless laptops,” said Maggiotto. “The system provides for convenient, easy patient charting.”

HOW IT WORKS

After a patient’s information entry is completed, the data is transmitted from the wireless laptop to Winthrop’s main computer through the closest of the facility’s eight RangeLAN2 Access Points.  These devices, manufactured by Proxim, Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), are mounted on the hospital’s walls and use radio frequency (RF) over-the-air transmission to communicate with the portable laptops, allowing staff to move freely from one area of the hospital to another without losing their network connection.  The access points are “hardwired” to the main computer.  This wireless system has proven safe in healthcare, and has been implemented in areas considered sensitive to radio frequency interference, such as neonatal monitoring and intensive care units.  In fact, RangeLAN2 meets IEC 601-1-2, the European safety specification for RF devices in healthcare, and is installed in more than 600 healthcare facilities worldwide.

Proxim’s access points utilize frequency hopping spread spectrum wireless LAN technology and operate in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency bandwidth to transmit information between the PCMCIA wireless adapter cards installed in each laptop and the hospital’s Ethernet LAN.  The hospital’s LAN conveys data to a wide area network server in the hospital, which transmits data to the SMS data center in Pennsylvania over a high-speed T1 circuit.  Information is transferred between the data center and the wireless computers in Mineola - all within one second.

With RangeLAN2’s 500-plus-foot range and roaming capabilities, the six-floor hospital requires only eight wireless Access Points to cover the entire facility.  The Emergency Room has two laptops, the day surgery unit has one, and the busy nursing station has five.  All of the Proxim equipment (the wireless PC adapter cards and access points) and Fujitsu Laptop units were purchased through SMS (Malvern, Pa.), who installed the products and trained the users.

Staff use the Fujitsu PT-510RF pen-tablet computers mounted on mobile carts when making rounds in the hospital.  These 100 MHz-166 MHz laptops have 48 MB of memory and from 2.1 to 4.1 GB of hard disk capacity.  They run SMS Invision and Emergisoft’s ER System software programs through Rumba software for Windows 95/NT and a SMS GUI interface.

Winthrop’s LAN consists of 2,100 IBM-type nodes, including the eight wireless access points and 40 servers running Windows NT and Novell’s Netware operating systems.  The hospital’s network supports more than 40 different software packages, including MS Office and specific medical applications for areas such as cardiology, respiratory therapy, and physical therapy.

WINTHROP’S BENEFITS

“The wireless solution has met and exceeded Winthrop’s goals – to streamline processes and increase staff mobility,” said Maggiotto. “Patients no longer have the inconvenience of completing paperwork in the waiting room, and by eliminating duplicative tasks, caregivers are able to devote more time to doing what they do best – taking care of patients.

“Another benefit of wireless is cost savings,” said Maggiotto. “We saved on initial equipment and infrastructure costs, since we didn’t have to hard-wire the entire facility.

“Automating the patient care documentation process has proven an effective way to save our patients and staff something of real value – their time. It’s been very well received. The extended range and roaming capabilities of the wireless network have created a true mobile solution for Winthrop,” Maggiotto remarked.

While documentation will forever be necessary in the healthcare setting, paperwork need not be. The wireless system is enabling Winthrop’s healthcare team to relinquish some of the paper, and spend the extra time focusing even more of their efforts on helping patients get better!

Michelle Gervais is a technology writer with Coast Writing, an independent firm specializing in computer application articles. She can be reached at 805-566-9747 or e-mail michelle@coastwriting.com.