Hospital deploys 80 GHz radios providing high reliability and HIPAA compliant security
Santa Clara, Calif. – April 6, 2009 – BridgeWave Communications, the leading supplier of
gigabit wireless solutions, today announced that Holy Name Hospital deployed multiple gigabit wireless links to extend connectivity to campus buildings for flawless data transmission. Holy Name Hospital selected BridgeWave’s AR80 radios for uninterrupted gigabit connectivity, even during inclement weather.
Founded in 1925, Holy Name Hospital is a fully accredited, not-for-profit, acute care community hospital located in Teaneck, New Jersey. The hospital has become a comprehensive 361-bed medical center offering leading-edge medical practices and technologies.
Holy Name Hospital needed to bring two essential buildings onto the Hospital’s LAN, and had previously deployed different low frequency unlicensed wireless technologies. The 2.4 GHz links and subsequently, 5.8 GHz links, provided connectivity, however over time, the reliability of the links deteriorated due to other unlicensed applications being utilized. The IT team was constantly forced to attend to their 2.4 GHz radios and subsequently 5.8 GHz radios, as both frequencies failed to offer the reliability needed for critical hospital network services. This unreliability resulted in sapped employee productivity and an elevated number of calls to the IT desk.
Frank Marano, systems infrastructure director, department of information technology
at Holy Name Hospital, knew they needed to find a reliable way of connecting these buildings since low frequency wireless was not capable of getting the job done to the hospital’s high standards. They initially looked at another 5.8 GHz radio option from a major vendor, but it could not guarantee to alleviate the issues the Hospital had already experienced at that frequency. A leased OC-3 line was offered, but the ongoing $5,000 monthly cost made it too expensive, while a standard T-1 line would not provide sufficient bandwidth.
The Holy Name team was then researching point-to-point wireless technologies and came across BridgeWave at a major healthcare tradeshow. After extensive evaluation with Craig Lerman, founder and vice president of Let’s Think Wireless, a wireless systems integrator partnering with Holy Name, the hospital selected BridgeWave’s 80 GHz products due to their unrivalled reliability at gigabit bandwidths. Given that these links operated in the licensed frequency spectrum was a plus, as this would alleviate concerns with interference issues experienced with the unlicensed products. What is more, the product’s narrow beam widths at 80 GHz provide highly secure transmissions, providing HIPAA compliance required for healthcare networks.
“As an acute medical facility, our network must have connectivity twenty-four hours a day in order to fulfill our mission of overall healthcare excellence,” said Frank Marano, systems infrastructure director of information technology at Holy Name Hospital. “Specifically, we needed unwavering, high-capacity, LAN-like connectivity that would provide significant bandwidth for large data transmissions. BridgeWave radio’s have proven effortless, as they have offered faultless ‘set and forget’ reliability, offering the same connectivity as a wired network.”
BridgeWave’s AdaptRate™ (AR) technology also proved to be a valuable feature for Holy Name Hospital as they contend with rough weather in New Jersey that often degraded the performance of their lower frequency wireless. Unlike lower frequency radios, BridgeWave’s unique AR-enabled radios sense intense weather patterns and torrential downpours, and momentarily switch transmissions from GigE to 100 Mb/s data rates to maintain a highly available link.
“Holy Name Hospital is charged with the special mission of medical care and cannot run the risk of an insecure or unreliable wireless technology failing them given the vital nature of their network data,” said Amir Makleff, CEO at BridgeWave. “We have designed our products for HIPAA-compliant networks, ensuring essential health care applications are well-supported by our full GigE bandwidth, which provides carrier-class availability, ultra-low latency and the strongest wireless encryption commercially available."
“Holy Name Hospital has gone to great lengths to ensure they have the most advanced and secure wireless network in place,” said Craig Lerman. “This deployment will not only successfully deliver secure, resilient, high-bandwidth connectivity for today’s critical healthcare applications, but provide bandwidth to accommodate future growth as Holy Name Hospital furthers its reputation as a leading medical center.”
About BridgeWave Communications
Founded in 1999, BridgeWave Communications is the leading supplier of outdoor Gigabit wireless connectivity solutions. The company's exclusive AdaptRate™ and AdaptPath™ technologies combined with its advanced Forward Error Correction capability deliver the highest availability at the longest distances for full-rate gigabit links. BridgeWave's point-to-point, wireless solutions are widely deployed in mainstream enterprise and service provider network applications and are poised to play a key role in the migration to 4G mobile network backhaul. With the largest installed base of GigE radios worldwide, BridgeWave delivers the highest levels of product quality and reliability. For more information, visit www.bridgewave.com.
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