University College London Hospitals (UCLH) NHS Trust is creating what is said to be the UK's largest wireless network covering 7,000 users across eight sites, it was announced on 15 September 2005. The network, which will cover UCLH's new £422m hospital near Euston, is being installed to accommodate the move to an electronic patient record, a key part of the Connecting for Health national IT programme. The aim is that doctors and nurses working across the different hospital sites will be able to access patient information while on the move.
The new hospital building is the largest NHS construction project in the country and has links to the neighbouring Royal Free hospital and University College Medical School. The hospital is hoped to provide an exemplar for communications and staff management with a range of different services provided at one site.
UCLH is spending £70m on an electronic patient record system and will allow staff to access medical notes, case notes, test results and appointments from any one of the hospital's 2400 PC terminals.
Kevin Jarrold, director of information management at UCLH said that it would help staff working right across the trust, from operating theatre to bedside.
"This is a great illustration of the vital role that wireless technology has to play in a modern hospital environment," said Jarrold. "Moving away from paper based patient records to a wireless accessible electronic system really frees up the way that medical staff work. Not only is information more accurate, but notes can be referred to and updated in real time from anywhere in the hospital. This is particularly useful when a patient is being moved and the doctor requires access to his or her record en route."
Due to the sensitive nature of patient records data, security is a key issue for UCLH. The network, supplied by Aruba, protects patient information by adopting what is known as a "centralised multi-layered security strategy".
This means that a user or device attempting to connect is authenticated and checked for potential threats before being allowed onto the UCLH network. Additionally, all encryption is implemented centrally by an encryption engine rather than in individual access points.
UCLH started to become operational over the summer and further staff and services are to start working during September and October 2005.
Quelle: KableNET, 15.09.2005
