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For clinics and hospitals, as for all institutions that involve waiting time for patients/visitors, a well-made wireless network will bring undoubtable benefits to the institution.

Ensuring an excellent Wi-Fi climate shows above all respect for people to come to receive services from the institution, but is also an excellent opportunity to use the Wi-Fi channel for information and as a marketing tool. And this only covers the public aspect of a wireless network. On the other hand, at least for hospitals, a great deal of equipment requires an Internet connection nowadays. And since we are talking about an environment that by definition needs to be aseptic, Internet connection should be done through a carefully built and well-protected wireless network. Eliminating wires, cable ducts and even plugs eliminates a lot of places where germs could hide. Besides, a Wi-Fi network with a professionally configured architecture provides maximum mobility, all the information available on the Internet and even its own server, and is available from any point of the building at any time.

A critical point of any wireless network is its security level, especially for networks with great exposure to the public. This is our starting point in any discussion; all wireless configurations made by Net Shape are focused on this. The services we provide guarantee security both with the initial setup and the continuous monitoring of the technical protection parameters.

Why should hospitals invest in Wi-Fi networks?

As we were saying, there are two important issues that hospital managers should pay attention to. On the one hand, providing a Wi-Fi network for the public is a sign of normalcy, a service that should be found in any public institution. On the other hand, the personnel’s work would be greatly facilitated if access to information would be done via a wireless network and not by having to use a device that is connected to the internet through wires.

Since these are installations where hundreds of people could connect to the Internet at the same time at any point of the day, the wireless network needs to be able to support all such connections. There are many places where there are Wi-Fi network, but they work with hiccups or not at all. We are talking about weak routers and APs, or at least badly configured ones.

A good wireless network is not necessarily a large investment if things are handled professionally from the very start.

For us, at Net Shape, building a wireless network that can support hundreds of clients concurrently starts with a careful study of the project, where the colleagues from the design department play an extremely important role. From the field we need to get all the details to create a correct design. And this means not only areas and estimated concurrent devices connected to the wireless network, we also consider the number of buildings, wall thickness, and in the case of hospitals and clinics even the stress in connection with the medical devices, any interference that may affect medical measurements made with specialized equipment. A critical role in correctly estimating all these parameters is played by the project manager from the hospital – the person that can provide all such information.

Network design will take all such details into account, but also the measurements we will be performing in the field, so that all information brought together can shape a correct design that is not wasteful with resources and can provide the best possible Wi-Fi signal in any point taken into account.

The next step is to carry out virtual simulations, where we try to find any vulnerabilities. All networks we design are subjected to stress tests with loads that greatly exceed the maximum scenario proposed by the client. In plain English, if we are told that we need a network that can support 300 concurrent clients, we will make sure that at peak times the network behaves in an exemplary manner for a much higher number. We are helped a lot by the technology we use, as Ruckus APs are capable to orient themselves to the areas that have the greatest demand. All this technical support leads to a lean network that doesn’t need tens of devices which statistically involve a higher degree of risk.

You can find more information about Wi-Fi design, as well as several case studies, at this link.

The recommendation from Net Shape for wireless networks in hospitals and clinics: Ruckus Wi-Fi equipment

In all projects we are involved in we try to eliminate any compromise that could lead to results that involve too many unknown quantities. We are engineers, we want to stay away from unknown quantities (well, not all of them; we are also human ). From all our experience in high-speed wireless, we are able to deliver unexpectedly good results, especially since we have a strong technical partner on our side – Ruckus.

If you are the representative of a hospital or a private clinic and want to talk about how you could get the best Wi-Fi, you can contact us at any time. We will carefully answer all requests in extremely short time. As we ourselves are sometimes patient and want to solve our problems quickly and properly, you can become the patient of Net Shape. A happy one. You are in good hands here, we really are doctors in Wi-Fi.