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Hospitals practice ambient connectivity

By | August 9, 2010, 9:19 AM PDT

Visicalc co-founder Bob Frankston has become fascinated with a concept he calls “ambient connectivity.”

(He has a book length introduction.)

Ambient connectivity is the ability to assume connectivity anywhere and anytime, he writes — fast connectivity. It’s the future of the Internet.

And it’s what hospital IT is all about now.

Ruckus Wireless is among the companies taking advantage of this. (That’s their logo barking at the top.) The company today announced 15 new hospital contracts for its Smart WiFi system, ZoneFlex, which includes centralized management for wireless LANs that can cover a business or campus.

Hospitals have long been taking to WiFi like ducks to water, but the HITECH stimulus is pushing this into overdrive.

  • Everyone is on the network no matter what they can. No more phone tag.
  • Hand held devices can download health records in a flash.
  • Hospital rooms are no longer a maze of wires. You can get around in them.
  • Measurement devices are less likely to require a risky needle poke to work.
  • Measurements can be delivered to nursing stations and analyzed so alerts go out only in emergencies.

All these advantages grow with the advent of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Now numbers can be plugged into charts automatically. Now they are instantly available. Hand-offs between shifts are easier.

There are advantages here that go beyond the immediate. The health care industry is becoming an advocate for more WiFi spectrum, it has become a big market for products like ZonePlex which other industries can benefit from, and it’s stimulating the development of WiFi-linked devices, some of which work in homes.

Just as important, perhaps, hospitals are becoming a living demonstration of the ambient connectivity ideal Frankston writes about. Hospitals are creating demand for unlicensed spectrum as a byproduct of improving their operations.

Talk about a win-win-win.

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Dana Blankenhorn

About Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn was a contributing editor for SmartPlanet from 2009 to 2010.

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn

Contributing Editor

Dana Blankenhorn has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age's "NetMarketing" supplement and founded the Interactive Age Daily for CMP Media. He holds degrees from Rice and Northwestern universities. He is based in Atlanta.

Follow him on Twitter.

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a technology reporter since 1982, a business reporter since 1978, and a writer for as long as he can remember. His Schwab IRA has a few tech stocks in it, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials bought over 10 years ago. But the vast majority of his tiny fortune (emphasis on the word tiny) is invested in mutual funds. He presently writes for no one else but ZDNet, SmartPlanet and himself. But if you've got an opportunity let him know. If he takes the gig he"ll first add it to this disclosure page.

He writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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0 Votes
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health insurance
You guys should stop complaining cuz one the health care we
have now isnt as good as it was supposed to be. also the law has
just been signed give it a try u guys are too hard on democrats
they went to college and we voted for most of these people.so if u
want to say u have the right to choose tell that to ur congress
men or state official. as for obama people are just tryin to make it
look like america made a mistake he has done things to help us
and we had a full 8 years of a terrible president and i will be so as
happy as ever when a obama fixes bush's mistakes. You can find
full medical coverage at the lowest price from http://bit.ly/chE6zp
obama has to put up with the wo0rld judging his every move and
trying to fix the mess we are in we are lucky anyone wants to be
our president. STOP COMPLAINING AND GIVE HIM A BREAK. i
wanna see one of yall do what he sas done. some people are just
so ignorant.
Posted by capperfred
9th Aug 2010
0 Votes
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capperfred
I think your comment here is somewhat misplaced. There is nothing
here about health reform and no mention of the Administration.
Posted by DanaBlankenhorn
9th Aug 2010
0 Votes
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RE: Hospitals practice ambient connectivity
EHR can't happen quick enough. Just filled out another set of history, insurance, et al forms! sad

?Health Care? needs much more usage of computing technology (pretty much all technology involves ?computing?). There?s so much improvement in health care that?s just waiting for the efficient implementation of technology. The old ?paper records - human memory? system is stuck on stupid; it?s very inefficient (costly), and so much less than it could be!
Posted by GarryGR
10th Aug 2010
0 Votes
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RE: Hospitals practice ambient connectivity
The inner-connectivity part is the central issue. I know docs with 3 or 4 systems in their office. Each room has two or three computers and the desk has 4 in order to get labs, xrays, different hospitals or pharmacy records. Every hospital, lab, service and pharmacy wants a system made to their specs. They classically do not talk with each other and if you try to force them you end up with competing lines of code and the dreaded blue screen arises to smite thee.

Thus better to use the computer the company provides with softwear. It may be expensive but it seems the only solution.

Before I retired I was on a few boards that met to support HRT and I just could not make people see that proprietary programs may seem really kewl to the IT department and be a real feather in their cap but it was clearly not in the best interest of the hospital nor patient.

This seems like it must soon become the industry standard and I salute the farsightedness of these designers and businessmen.
Posted by IMWeira
10th Aug 2010
0 Votes
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RE: Hospitals practice ambient connectivity
Oh brother, not hormone replacement therapy (HRT) but electronic health records (EHR).

I promise to edit first and submit second in future posts.
Posted by IMWeira
10th Aug 2010
0 Votes
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IMWeira
WiFi provides a way for all those systems you mention to talk with
one another. Sure, there needs to be vendor support in order for
things to really work, but that support is coming. There is a lot of
work going on among vendors concerning standards.

The government's work on NHIN Connect is one example of this.
The heavy lifting is being done by industry, not by government.
Companies are motivated to increase EHR traffic volumes and
the interchange of data under meaningful use.

There's an assumption of ill will when we discuss health care
today, one driven in part by the viciousness of the debate over
health reform. Vendors don't really feel that. They're trying to
make their way with the incentives now in place.

WiFi is an example of a shared, common technology standard,
defined by hardware and set by government working with industry
as a standard. It works.
Posted by DanaBlankenhorn
10th Aug 2010
0 Votes
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RE: Hospitals practice ambient connectivity
Just to be a "stick-in-the-mud", recently in Canada, several parents have pulled their children out of school because of perceived "illnesses" being caused by that school's WiFi system.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/08/15/ontario-wifi.html

What if (and I mean IF!) there was a shred of truth to their argument that WiFi networks cause untold amounts of illnesses or negative biological interaction? Would hospitals then remove these WiFi systems and go the wired route, despite the damages to patients care that WiFi "apparently" causes?

Personally, I have no issues with WiFi or any low RF interaction with my body - I am a radio operator by profession, and have handled more RF interactions/shocks/burns than the average person could ever imagine, and simply do not see how a WiFi transmitter could affect the human condition.

But what if...?
Posted by Edouin
17th Aug 2010
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