5 Ways to Improve Your Hospital’s Wi-Fi Network Without a Complete System Overhaul

Poor Wi-Fi performance in a hospital setting can be debilitating. Everyday operations and mission-critical equipment rely on having a strong wireless network. If hospital staff members are experiencing problems like spotty coverage, slow connectivity, frequent equipment failure and security issues, your hospital’s Wi-Fi network is putting patient care at risk.

But for many professionals, the idea of undertaking a complete system overhaul is frightening. The effort, the costs, the potential for downtime — all of these realities are concerning. Fortunately, there are ways you can improve the health of your hospital’s Wi-Fi network without expending all of your resources, draining your budget or causing major headaches for your staff.

It may be time to reevaluate your current wireless network and implement some of the following steps to ensure that you’re providing the hospital and its patients with adequate connectivity, reliability and security.

Network Assessment to Discover Issues

You can’t fix problems with your hospital’s Wi-Fi network if you don’t know what they are. The issues your users face on a daily basis could be the product of any number of performance-inhibiting factors, including but not limited to:

• Interference
• High-density areas of users
• High-bandwidth applications
• Low-powered devices
• Inadequate security measures

Your network is probably being accessed by all types of devices, such as laptops, tablets, smartphones and medical equipment. Knowing how those devices, their users and the hospital environment are affecting the performance of your Wi-Fi network is key to executing the right improvements.

That is why assessing your wireless network design and performing a site survey is the most important step in bringing your Wi-Fi connectivity to optimal levels. Doing so involves working with highly trained and knowledgeable wireless engineers who are able to diagnose and propose network enhancements to existing deployments that are not providing the necessary degree of performance.

Network Clean-Up for Greater Manageability

As time passes since the last refresh of your hospital’s network, a tangled mess of network closets, racks and switches can cause some of the following problems:

• Prevent easy troubleshooting and diagnostics
• Present network susceptibility due to trip or snag hazards from dangling cables
• Lead to fiber optic cable breakage as a result of improperly run and terminated fiber

In addition to these issues, many networks have more ports in inventory than are needed, which results in excessive yearly maintenance expense. As part of your efforts to optimize your hospital’s Wi-Fi system, make sure you partner with professional engineers to clean up your closets, color code your patch cords, identify single points of failure and help “right-size” your edge network.

Mission-Critical Network Design

When hospital Wi-Fi users are complaining of poor performance, the blame can often fall on a number of culprits, including the equipment manufacturer, the network administrator, the Internet service provider, etc. In some cases, these factors may be contributing to the problem. But what if they’re not? What if the underlying issue is a faulty network design?

It’s important to spend time delving into the following questions to evaluate whether your network design is up to par or in need of augmentation.

What’s interfering with the hospital’s network reception?

Elements such as neighboring Wi-Fi hotspots, concrete walls, metal, electronics, Bluetooth devices and even outdated firmware can interfere with the network. With a smart wireless network design, however, these issues can be overcome.

Where are your highest-density areas of users?

There may be certain locations throughout your hospital where signals need to be stronger in order to accommodate greater levels of usage. With a proper wireless network assessment, you’ll be able to uncover those hidden areas and boost performance for all users.

Which applications are demanding the most bandwidth?

Are hospital patients and guests clogging up bandwidth with excessive use of social media and streaming applications? Or are medical and informational systems demanding the majority? It is essential to pinpoint which applications are actually consuming the most bandwidth so that you can supplement or limit access where needed and take steps to ensure the best possible network performance.

How can user expectations be met?

Whether you’re catering to hospital staff or patients and guests, the expectations of your Wi-Fi users are fundamental to the wireless network design. A smart network design targets these needs to deliver exceptional performance for all users throughout the hospital.

Strengthened Security

Hospitals are becoming bigger targets for cyber criminals, and security breaches continue to be a problem in the healthcare arena. This is a huge liability for your hospital. It is absolutely critical to ensure that you’re fortifying your hospital’s Wi-Fi network in order to protect all users and safeguard sensitive data. Not only does this enhance network performance, but it also ensures that your hospital meets strict compliance regulations, like HIPAA.

It’s important to understand that older network equipment is more susceptible to intrusions than newer hardware and firmware. In fact, even if you’re making sure that the firmware of older wireless equipment stays updated and patched, that equipment still lacks the vulnerability solutions of newer models. Be sure to consider whether it’s time for an equipment upgrade.

Increased Points of Access

It’s possible that certain issues in Wi-Fi connectivity are directly related to the setup of your access points, which comes back to performing a site survey and network assessment. This will allow you to uncover your high-density or bandwidth-hungry locations and supplement with either additional or greater-capacity access points. There is no universal approach to access point types or locations. Every situation is unique and should be designed as such, so make sure you’re including this element in your efforts to improve hospital Wi-Fi performance.

By implementing some of these targeted efforts, you can work toward eliminating wireless network problems without the need to undertake an entire system overhaul. Don’t let the worry of this kind of endeavor inhibit you from making the necessary changes to improve Wi-Fi performance. Patient care, efficiency and productivity all depend on having a strong wireless network.

What fears do you have about optimizing your hospital’s Wi-Fi network? Add your comments below, and find out more about network improvements by reading Healthcare IT Professionals: Is It Time To Invest In Better Wireless Networking?