7SIGNAL announced that The Christ Hospital Health Network has completed the first phase of its deployment of 7SIGNAL’s Wi-Fi performance management system for enhancing Wi-Fi experiences across its network.
The solution includes a system of software and client devices that continually monitor and measure Wi-Fi experiences for patients, doctors, nurses, clinicians, and guests. Wi-Fi performance data is crowdsourced from hundreds of mobile devices, and 7SIGNAL analytics tell IT staff where Wi-Fi experiences need additional care and attention.
According to James Vajda, Senior Wi-Fi Engineer for The Christ Hospital Health Network and Certified Wireless Network Expert, the most important wireless-enabled application is Voice over Wi-Fi. “We have about 1,000 Cisco 7925 phones, and their performance can be sensitive to any RF disruptions. We use those for critical business processes in the hospital. We also have workstations on wheels (WOWs) that we run Citrix clients on, where the EMR application is served. Those are constantly moving up and down the halls and need good wireless performance also.”
Christ Hospital deployed 7SIGNAL’s Mobile Eye software for its WOWs to capture Wi-Fi experiences on mobile devices. They had challenges with a lack of standardization in the adapters and drivers that were installed, and the actual problem was that the WOW had an old adapter with bad drivers.
In addition, the hospital deployed 7SIGNAL’s high-performance clients, called Sapphire Eyes in the Emergency Department, and other clinical areas where wireless problems seemed to be the most elusive. Sapphire Eyes monitor Wi-Fi experiences 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and automatically report issues relating to connecting, authenticating, voice quality, throughput speed, and interference in the air.
Phase 2 of the project will include Sapphire Eye coverage in both main hospitals, as well as enterprise-wide Mobile Eye deployment.
