How WiFi Is Improving Healthcare

Figures for 2015 reveal that in the UK, only 36% of National Health Service (NHS) trusts were offering WiFi availability to their staff and patients. Not surprisingly, it was also noted that lack of WiFi connectivity contributed to widespread inefficiency within healthcare environments.

Yet WiFi is virtually ubiquitous in modern society: people move around equipped with mobile technology, from iPads, notepads – even laptops – to smartphones. They all want easy, efficient connectivity to the internet and to one another.

Connected healthcare

The myriad benefits of wireless are evident in improving quality care, reducing healthcare expenses and enabling an increase in communication between patients, doctors and hospital staff.

Where hospitals are connected, all the devices being used in patient diagnostics, treatment, and monitoring can communicate, using wireless technology, to the Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) system. Such coordinated integration enables those giving care to provide appropriate, timely and efficient treatment while also greatly reducing time ‘lost’ on administration

Indeed, a nurse keeping notes on a tablet has more time to make her rounds, interact with patients and thus spend less time sitting in front of a workstation computer. Or, that nurse could equip a diabetic patient with a wearable device and keep track of daily glucose levels or use another device that could transmit data on an injured patient’s heart rate and send an alert in the event of dangerous stress.

Saving time and lives

Connecting medical devices to EHR systems saves time and lives. It can take between seven and ten minutes to record a patient’s vitals and biometrics using conventional methods. With WiFi connected EHR, that ratio plummets to less than one minute per patient. This reduction in the time used up on basic routines enables clinicians to offer higher quality care.

Empowering patients

Patients have the potential through WiFi to access vital information directly from their hospital bed that may show them how to avoid a repeat of what landed them there. They would be able to learn about prevention, recovery and rehabilitation as well as possible therapeutic activities and exercises.

Wireless healthcare is the way forward to a more efficient, effective and economic health service. Visit our web site for more details: https://www.redwaynetworks.com/healthcare/

Find Out More