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Background
East Sussex Hospital Trusts was formed in 2001 from Hastings
and Rother and Eastbourne NHS Trusts. The trust has over 1,150
patient beds and 5,000 staff across its two main sites of
Hastings and Eastbourne Hospitals.
winner 2004
Cisilion won the coveted
Channel Network Award in the Enterprise Mobility category with the
successful implementation of this solution for East Sussex Hospital Trusts.
The Challenge
In 2002/2003 East Sussex Hospitals had 35,000 planned admissions,
32,900 emergency admissions, 291,000 outpatient appointments
and 89,000 Accident and Emergency cases. Given these figures,
even basic administration tasks can become very time consuming,
impacting considerably the productivity of staff.
Eastbourne District General Hospital required a Wireless
LAN Solution to cover the patient wards, outpatients, casualty,
intensive care and consultant's area of the hospital.
This solution was intended to allow East Sussex Hospitals
more efficient use of doctor and administrator time by giving
them access to patient's medical records and administration
systems in any part of the hospital.
The Solution
After a detailed site survey it was calculated that 140 Cisco
Aironet 1200 Access-Points would be required to cover the
main patient and consultant areas.
Security was a priority for the installation, since patients'
records would be accessed across the network. For Security
reasons it was decided not to use static WEP keys, as these
are easy to break. Cisilion's consultants installed a VPN
(Virtual Private Network) solution based
around a Cisco VPN 3020 concentrator which encrypts the user
data with 3DES on the Wireless LAN. Using 3DES also meets
the UK Government Security Manual V requirements for transmitting
data on Wireless LAN.
The Cisco VPN Client was installed with the auto-initiate
feature enabled on all Microsoft Windows 2000 laptops. This
allowed the installation to be virtually 'Plug and Play' from
a point of view of the medical staff.
In order to monitor the 140 Aironet 1200 Access-Points, the
Cisco Works 2000 Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE) 2.5 was
installed along with 6 x 24 Port 3550-24 In-Line power switches
used to power the access points.
The Benefits
The Eastbourne Hospital project is currently the largest
deployment of a WLAN solution within the NHS. It has already
begun to transform the way in which medical staff work, allowing
them to access patient records directly at the bedside, or
wherever they happen to be.
"Even if you only look at the sheer physical distances
covered by a day nurse or a doctor, you can begin to see where
savings are going to be made," says Paul Lambert, Network
Manager at Eastbourne General Hospital.
"In some instances, where some aspect of a patient's
long-term record becomes relevant to a current case, the system
can save hours or even days. The implications for speed and
efficiency of treatment are incalculable. Without wireless,
it simply would not be possible."
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