Regional Medical Center At Memphis (The MED) Selects Aruba To Address Mobile Device Challenges, Improve Patient Care

Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN) today announced that Regional Medical Center at Memphis (The MED) has replaced its Cisco wireless network with an Aruba wireless LAN to expand coverage across its main hospital and four clinics and to connect the organization’s increasing number of wireless medical and mobile devices. The MED has also deployed Aruba ClearPass, an access management system designed to simplify and automate the secure provisioning of mobile devices on enterprise networks, to deliver improved wireless guest access to patients and visitors.

With more than 2,200 employees including 500 nurses and 200 doctors, The MED is a regional healthcare resource serving a five-state region within 150 miles of Memphis, Tennessee. Comprised of a large main hospital and four clinics, The MED also serves as one of the largest medical and surgical teaching sites for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

In 2010, The MED realized it needed to replace its aging 802.11 b/g network which was delivering spotty and inconsistent coverage and proving difficult for The MED’s IT team to manage. In addition to upgrading the network to 802.11n to improve overall bandwidth and speed, The MED had several critical goals for its wireless network overhaul: improving and expanding coverage across the full campus; supporting the growing number of new wireless medical and mobile devices coming onto the network; ensuring ease of use and secure access not only for staff, nurses and physicians, but also for patients and their visitors on the hospital guest network; and finally, easing the network management burden for the IT department. After a thorough evaluation of WLAN solutions from its incumbent vendor, Cisco Systems, and Aruba Networks, The MED determined that Aruba could best meet its needs.

The MED deployed two Aruba mobility controllers and 450 Aruba AP-135 access points, as well as the AirWave network management system and Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager and ClearPass Guest. The Aruba wireless network now gives The MED full coverage across its entire campus including the previous “dead spots” between buildings and clinical areas that were subject to dropped connections with the old network. In addition, the new network can accommodate the increasing number of mobile devices that The MED is connecting to the network including 215 Bedside Mobile Workstations (BMWs) that doctors and nurses access for bedside medication, verification and medical documentation. The MED has also rolled out mobile hand scanners that provide nurses with greater flexibility to scan medications, patient wristbands and IDs from anywhere in the hospital, rather than being tied to a static workstation.

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