SevenHills HealthCity Becomes India's First Paperless Hospital With Next Gen 802.11n Wi-Fi Technology From Ruckus Wireless

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and MUMBAI, India, May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Ruckus Wireless™, the smart mobile networking company, today announced that SevenHills Hospital has selected and is standardizing on the Ruckus ZoneFlex™ 802.11n Smart Wireless LAN (WLAN) system across its massive "SevenHills HealthCity" servicing Mumbai.

With the Ruckus ZoneFlex system in place, SevenHills HealthCity will now be able to automate routine data collection to reduce errors and dependency on paperwork as well as instantly capture real-time patient data, test results, medical records and other life-critical information to accelerate patient evaluation and improve diagnostic accuracy.

SevenHills is deploying 350 ZoneFlex 7962 dual-band smart Wi-Fi access points (APs) and multiple ZoneDirector controllers across its "HealthCity." SevenHills' HealthCity is built on 17 acres comprising more than 3 million square feet of space to support a 1500-bed facility, 300 residential complexes and large medical facilities that include 36 modular operation theaters, pharmacies, 120 outpatient consulting chambers, waiting areas and two auditoriums.

SevenHills will also use the new Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system with wireless handheld devices and patient wrist bands employing radio frequency identification (RFID), making it possible to track the location and status of patients throughout a hospital campus. Real-time location systems (RTLSs) are used for accurate asset tracking and location, driving cost savings and workflow productivity gains. SevenHills also plans to leverage the new Wi-Fi system to enable IP-based voice and video communications among healthcare personnel to improve communications. According to Suresh Kumar, General Manager of Information Technology at SevenHills Hospital, SevenHills had a mandate to ensure doctors were well equipped with the proper technology to allow them to spend quality time with each patient, as well as to capture and share real time data with other specialists and staff in the hospital. Additionally, each doctor and staff member needs to be equipped with smart handheld devices that allow them to source patient information from wherever they are in the campus.

"Signal coverage and wireless stability were big obstacles in achieving this mandate," said Kumar.  "We looked at a variety of technology in the market but found that only the Ruckus system was purposely designed to address physical layer issues and allow wireless networks to behave more like a wire.

"Wireless is now considered a strategic imperative within healthcare to lower costs, increase operational efficiency, expedite patient care and gain timely access to life-critical information," he continued. "The problem is that hospitals create one of the worst environments for Wi-Fi given all the various devices, obstructions, delay-sensitive applications and RF interference found here.  Traditional Wi-Fi technology just wouldn't cut it. This is what led us to more advanced implementations, such as those from Ruckus Wireless."

SevenHills selected the Ruckus ZoneFlex system because of its unique use of patented "Smart Wi-Fi" antenna array technology integrated into each of its APs for increased Wi-Fi range and reliability.

Smart Wi-Fi is a new generation of standard-based 802.11 technology that leverages intelligent antenna arrays and dynamic beamforming technologies to automatically form and direct wireless transmissions over the best performing signal paths and away from interference. This results in a two- to four-fold increase in coverage along with more consistent wireless performance at greater distances.

After evaluating a number of wireless LAN alternatives, SevenHills selected the Ruckus ZoneFlex system due to its ability to uniquely extend signal coverage with fewer APs and automatically adapt to environmental changes.

Kumar said, "We were looking for a Wi-Fi vendor that would work well in an environment where there are many obstructions and sources of RF interference. Most vendors could handle the environment with lots of APs but couldn't cope with interference. Ruckus Wireless gave the highest performance in terms of throughput at various distances and stability of signals. Ruckus was also able to demonstrate multi-megabit video streaming across large areas, whereas other vendors were not. These factors, combined with its amazingly simple and easy-to-use management interface, made it the ideal choice for our healthcare organization."

"Healthcare is widely considered one of the most challenging environments for today's Wi-Fi systems," said Sudarshan Boospalli, Head of India Operations for Ruckus Wireless. "Yesterday's Wi-Fi products and technologies just don't provide the reliability needed for the new types of applications demanded by healthcare professionals. Ruckus has innovated a unique system specifically designed for high-bandwidth, latency-sensitive applications and without the cost and complexity that has been traditionally associated with conventional wireless LAN deployments."

SOURCE Ruckus Wireless