Providing the very best healthcare requires the very best network

Healthcare networks have to contend with very high levels of on-site and off-site employee mobility, high levels of employee collaboration, large numbers of staff – doctors, nurses and specialists – all with different requirements. Patients and guests come and go, large amounts of data have to be made available to different audiences, while strict regulatory and compliance standards that govern practices and privacy have to be met.

These unique demands place huge burdens on IT departments managing healthcare networks, trying to ensure that priority – and access – be given to various users at different times and in real emergencies to ensure demands are met.

Healthcare is a perfect example of where new developments in Unified Access solves not just some, but all of the communications needs of its users, and puts the IT department back in control of its own network. It's all to do with profiles stored within the UA system and it means that anyone registering – whether a doctor, specialist, nurse, patient or visitor – is given access codes while the underlying Unified Access solution automatically sets the parameters for each user. Let's look at how this works in a healthcare organisation.

Enabling a highly mobile workforce
Many contemporary healthcare organisations are structured into local or regional groups and trusts, and within these groups there is a high degree of mobility as doctors, specialists, therapists or midwives move between locations and medical facilities. One problem healthcare professionals face is having to deal with a different IT department in each hospital which have separate, laborious processes for gaining the right network access on any new device. Once set up, a Unified Access network allows employees to access networks through wired and wireless devices at the locations they need based on just one user profile, eliminating the need to interact with every IT department.

But by the very nature of their work, doctors in particular spend much of their time away from a desk or a desktop computer, either with patients or colleagues in various departments and wards. The need to return to a fixed device to check on emails or messages, collect voice mails or access network data is a time consuming and inefficient process. But allowing access to the network or valuable patient data on unsecured mobile devices can pose a potential security risk.

Unified Access provides the solution, immediately authorising access to networks and data based on user profiles and predefined policies. The right people – and only the right people – are thereby allowed to access and record information securely or use the applications and tools they need on their mobile or fixed devices. Healthcare providers can securely access patient test results, check patient records and share information as they need, on the move at the right time.

Not only does this save care providers valuable time, but improves patient care by communicating crucial clinical information to team members any time, anywhere.

Enabling the right tool for the job
Some doctors demand iPads because of the quality of the pictures, some locums just need a smartphone, and with so many specialisms in healthcare, communication and collaboration play a vital role. A network should be designed to support this process, not be a hindrance, and should ensure that audio, 1:1 video, group video conferencing, instant messaging, and document and data sharing should all be available at any time, on any device.

And its not just smart phones and iPads placing a strain on networks, new wired and wireless medical devices are a growing part of modern clinical care. Connecting medical devices over the network reduces the reliance on manual data entry and improves workflow, while also having the potential to reduce human error. But in a clinical care environment it is essential that real-time communication between medical devices is both reliable and secure.

No Rip out and Replace with UA
A risk that legacy networks installed in healthcare organisations pose is that with so many network users on separate devices, critical processes such as access to clinical data, communications, remote monitoring and data sharing can be negatively impacted by the network's inability to service all these demands. With Unified Access, legacy networks can be integrated into a total WLAN and LAN state-of-the-art infrastructure enabling users with different requirements and priorities to have the connectivity they need.

Keeping patients and visitors WiFi happy
One of the key features of any Unified Access solution should be that the network is application fluent. Yes the network needs to have user-centric network services to be able to recognise, authorise, and control user access, and yes it needs device-centric network services to recognise and control devices with automated device onboarding. But with the addition of application-centric network services, the network can recognise and control those all important applications, allowing IT managers to prioritise the organisation's critical applications, stop harmful or non-compliant applications, and harmonise the co-existence of business and personal applications.

In this way, patients using Skype to connect to family, or watching a film via a laptop or iPad will never be able to interfere with prioritised care or business-critical processes. Visitors and guests can be restricted to simple network access, such as email access or web browsing and even restricted by location so they may only do so in a specific area and not overload access points.

It's not about access, it's all about the right access
It's not just about access any more, it's about getting the right access in a way that will not undermine the core needs and functions of the healthcare organisation. The need to support critical medical data and clinical applications means the network requires high availability and performance across both wired and wireless devices.

Unified Access offers this by converging both wired and wireless environments, and putting in place a comprehensive network management system that can recognise the user, device and application, thus offering the level of control needed for the secure and reliable networks that healthcare demands.