Concord Hospital Expands Its Trapeze Networks Wireless LAN, Improving Patient Safety and Quality

PLEASANTON, Calif., July 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Trapeze Networks, a Belden Brand (NYSE: BDC) and leader in enterprise wireless LAN equipment and management software, today announced its new Trapeze solution provides the reliability that Concord Hospital requires to expand its host of mission-critical, progressive mobile applications.

With exponential organizational growth and an influx of new mobile technologies, Concord Hospital needs to rely increasingly on its wireless network for mobility applications that contribute to the overall quality of patient care. With clustering, scalability and 802.11n support, Trapeze gives Concord Hospital's IT department 100% confidence that its suite of essential wireless applications will run flawlessly.

Trapeze President Dhrupad Trivedi said, "Trapeze Networks is honored to contribute to Concord Hospital's overall excellence. Our highly-available and reliable wireless networks prepare Concord Hospital's medical staff teams to successfully work in a mobile, collaborative and instantaneous environment."

Grow the Wireless Enterprise with Trapeze Wireless LAN Technology

Concord Hospital is constantly growing and always expanding. The scalability of the Trapeze Networks solution lets Concord Hospital support 3,200 employees, which includes 750+ physicians and nurses throughout Concord Hospital's main campus and ten plus remote sites which serve over 145,000 residents. The Trapeze Networks clustering and hitless failover techniques simplify adds, moves and changes and has reduced operating costs up to 60%.

"We're extremely diligent in selecting and implementing sophisticated technology that enhances the quality, efficiency and safety of patient care," said Mark Starry, director of enterprise architecture and security at Concord Hospital. "Trapeze Networks is the only company with instant failover capabilities in its wireless controllers so AP traffic is immediately picked up by another controller if one fails – without any effect on performance or availability. Trapeze Networks' hitless failover approach is the main reason why we now feel that the availability of our myriad of wireless voice and video applications is approaching the five 9s level of availability that our core wired network provides."

Concord Hospital Goes Wireless Everywhere

Mobile wireless access is needed almost everywhere with almost everything at Concord Hospital. New Alaris IV pumps (www.alarismed.com) and ultrasound equipment are accessible through wireless connectivity. Wireless VoIP technology provides instant access in real-time to pertinent patient information from nearly every procedure and patient room. Guests have access to the Internet through Concord Hospital's Webguest application.

The wireless network has to be reliable enough to send important voice-recognized messages and critical alerts from health care information systems. Concord Hospital uses other innovative wireless applications such as, Tandberg Video Conferencing (www.tandberg.com), for real time-high definition video consults from physicians at remote specialty hospitals, DeafTalk (www.deaf-talk.com), a bedside video-conference application so hard-of-hearing patients can use translation services and successfully communicate with medical staff and McKesson Horizon Clinicals (www.mckesson.com) for bedside medication reconciliation to eliminate medication errors.

VoIP Wireless with Trapeze Networks

One of Concord Hospital's primary wireless applications includes mobile voice-recognition badges from Vocera (www.vocera.com). All medical and support staff wear Vocera communications badges for instant voice communication between care providers and alert notifications from equipment such glucometers in the labs and Ultrasound and EKG machines. Trapeze Networks' solutions give the resiliency and redundancy important for wireless VoIP to be as dependable as the hospital's wired VoIP telephony. Trapeze Networks Mobility System Software™ (MSS) with RingMaster® allows Concord Hospital to effectively manage the network from one console, including setting traffic priorities on the wireless network so VoIP wireless transmissions take precedent over other data-driven applications.

"The benefit of a wearable communications system, such as Vocera, is the immediate access to critical resources enabling faster, better decisions making across the care continuum," said Brent Lang, chief operating officer for Vocera. "A robust, resilient network, as provided to the Concord Hospital by Trapeze Networks, assures critical communication and delivery of alarms occurs immediately, expediting responsiveness and patient care."

Throughout the specification, design and roll-out of the enhanced wireless network, Integration Partners (www.integrationpartners.com), a solution provider in Lexington, MA, worked closely with technical teams from Concord Hospital and Trapeze Networks. Principal and Co-Founder of Integration Partners Bart Graf said, "With the deployment of the Trapeze solution, Concord Hospital can now ensure all their robust wireless applications are guaranteed to operate without any performance degradation. In the future, we look forward to implementing a full conversion to 802.11n to reduce the amount of cabling in the network's core and to further enhance performance."

About Concord Hospital

Concord Hospital, a regional medical center in Concord, NH, is the second busiest acute care hospital in the state with 295 licensed beds. In fiscal year 2009, there were over 65,000 emergency room visits and 17,194 total admissions. Traditional acute-care services in 42 medical specialties and subspecialties are enhanced and supported by the following Centers of Excellence: Center for Cardiac Care, Center for Orthopedic Care, Payson Center for Cancer Care, Center for Urologic Care, and Women's Health Services. Concord Hospital is an affiliate of Capital Region Health Care which includes Concord Regional Visiting Nurse Association, Riverbend Community Mental Health and related affiliates.

About Integration Partners

Integration Partners, Lexington, MA, designs, implements and supports secure, fully converged networks using the best solutions the industry offers. We are an engineering firm with roots in enterprise data networking, staffed by professionals who are certified at the highest levels. Most important, we are deeply committed to our customers' success from configuration and integration through to support and maintenance of the network. The result is that our customers are certain that they have the best possible solution for their needs.

About Trapeze Networks

Trapeze Networks, a Belden brand, provides wireless LAN (WLAN) solutions with a focus on unmatched reliability, specializing in industries where always-on connectivity is a business-critical concern such as healthcare, education, manufacturing and hospitality. As part of Smart Mobile®, its highly distributed edge-networking architecture, Trapeze Networks has pioneered technologies that deliver unprecedented session-level reliability, such as controller virtualization. Trapeze Networks WLANs have been deployed in leading corporations and organizations worldwide, and include some of the largest WLAN deployments to date.

SOURCE Trapeze Networks