Wireless hospital brings patient data to bedside

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust has contracted Alfred McAlpine IT Services to install a wireless LAN (WLAN) at Salisbury District Hospital.

The WLAN, which will cost the trust at least £170,000, will be used by medical staff to access information and update systems at the point of contact with the patient.

According to Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust head of IT Peter Russell, the hospital is one of a few in the country blazing a trail by installing a WLAN across the whole site.

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The WLAN, which is completing a pilot stage in two wards and is expected to roll out to the rest of the hospital by the end of the year, will be used in conjunction with the C5 mobile tablet PC to provide doctors and other medical staff with patient records at the bedside.

A key driver for the project was to provide medical staff with patient X-rays and scans under the Picture Archiving and Communications System (Pacs) programme set up by Connecting For Health - part of the £12.4bn NHS national IT programme.

Russell said: "We can't always take a patient to a fixed line computer, we need to take the data to where they are."

The network will also have the potential to be used to monitor and track medical supplies and equipment through barcoding and RFID as the C5 unit incorporates barcode and RFID scanners.

One possible use in this context is the restocking of drugs within the ward. Currently this process is tracked through a paper system.

Russell said: "Written stock lists have to be put through the pharmacy management system. If pharmacists can update stock levels in the ward, the drugs will have been picked and ready for them to pick up as soon as they reach the pharmacy."

However, RFID will be used sparingly, if at all, to monitor scarce, valuable pieces of equipment.