HIMSS15--Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN) today announced that Boston Medical Center (BMC), a private, not-for-profit, 482-bed, academic medical center in Boston, MA., is deploying Aruba’s 802.11ac and mobile app solutions to enable a campus-wide Gigabit wireless network with indoor location services that will benefit physicians, staff and patients.

Boston Medical Center (BMC), the largest safety-net hospital in New England, will use Aruba Networks ...

Boston Medical Center (BMC), the largest safety-net hospital in New England, will use Aruba Networks Gigabit Wi-Fi and mobile app solutions to improve physician and staff efficiencies and advance patient care. (Photo: Business Wire)

With more than 26,064 admissions and 874,770 patient visits in the last year, BMC is undergoing a major clinical campus redesign project, which will include expanding wireless coverage and upgrading to 802.11ac in all 30 existing buildings, as well as the renovated and expanded Menino Pavilion, Yawkey Center and Moakley Buildings. In addition, the Medical Center plans to implement Aruba’s Meridian mobile app platform to allow physicians, staff, patients and visitors to more easily find their way around campus, as well as access important information and services.

As part of the clinical campus redesign, BMC, which also serves as the teaching hospital for Boston University School of Medicine, will consolidate its campus into a smaller footprint for more efficient operations. A key part of this project is the network upgrade that will accommodate the increase in new wireless and mobile devices and new applications coming onto the network, a transition from the hospital’s multiple outdated Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems to a new, one record, EPIC system, and support for the more than 450 laptops on mobile carts that doctors and nurses are using throughout the medical center to record patient data.

“We’re seeing about 3,000 devices on the network every day,” said Craig Reise, manager of Network Infrastructure and Engineering for Boston Medical Center. “These include medical devices such as handheld glucometers for blood sugar readings, infusion pumps, lab specimen collection and barcode printing systems, as well as the personal mobile devices of staff, physicians and of course, our patients and visitors. With the number of these devices growing at a rapid clip, we need to be sure that our wireless infrastructure can handle both the density and variety of devices on the network without sacrificing performance.”

In addition, Reise noted that BMC wanted to eliminate “dead zones” as well as deliver pervasive coverage across all of its facilities including challenging areas like the lead-lined walls of the radiology rooms. “In an environment like ours, wireless LAN design and testing is critical to ensuring success and pervasive wireless coverage,” he said. “And having that highly reliable, pervasive coverage is key to making sure that doctors and nurses can get patient information quickly and from anywhere in the hospital – whether at a station or bedside with a mobile cart – as well as locate the equipment they need for their patients’ care as quickly as possible. Exceptional patient care is always the end goal.”

According to Reise, BMC had previously used Aruba gear and when it came time to upgrade the network, there was no question that Aruba would continue to be their wireless networking partner. The Medical Center is deploying Aruba 220 Series 802.11ac Access Points, 7200 Series Mobility Controllers, AirWave network management and the ClearPass Access Management solution for mobile device authentication and access.

“Aruba was a great partner in helping us through design, planning and implementation,” said Reise. “In a working hospital, you can’t afford to have disruption of services to patients, so planning ahead to ensure that access points were placed in the right locations, for example, was crucial to a smooth transition and roll-out, and Aruba helped us through all of these stages.” Reise also noted that BMC relies heavily on AirWave for visibility and troubleshooting of the network. “We don’t have a dedicated IT staff just for wireless so a network management tool like AirWave saves us a great deal of time and energy when it comes to viewing and isolating any network issues.”

With over 1,100 802.11ac devices already Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™, BMC’s upgrade ensures greater speeds and higher reliability for the myriad of devices on their network, and can enable better efficiencies for clinicians and technical staff, alike. BMC is using the network to transmit EKG orders and results, send infusion device drug library updates to more than 1,000 devices, and send vital sign and ventilator data to their EMR. With these capabilities, staff receive information in a more timely and accurate manner and reduce the manual effort previously required to update and maintain these systems that are so critical to patient care. BMC also plans to use the wireless infrastructure as the foundation for applications like asset tracking to keep track of important and valuable hospital equipment such as wheelchairs and infusion pumps.

BMC also plans to launch Aruba’s Meridian mobile app platform to deliver wayfinding capabilities. According to Reise, navigating BMC’s large campus is a challenge even for hospital staff who sometimes have trouble locating departments they may not frequent. With the Meridian mobile app platform, BMC can roll out their own mobile application to help both staff and visitors find their way from one department or building to another using indoor navigation technology.

“The new wireless infrastructure gives us the foundation we need to accommodate the ever-increasing number of both medical and mobile devices, as well as new applications that can make our staff’s jobs easier and improve the care and satisfaction of our patients and visitors,” said Reise. “With the new Aruba Gigabit Wi-Fi network, we’re confident that we can continue to deliver on the needs of our employees and our patients.”

Aruba will be demonstrating its 802.11ac and mobile app solutions at the HIMSS15 annual conference and exhibition in Chicago, IL, April 12-15, 2015, booth 1853.

About Boston Medical Center

Boston Medical Center is a private, not-for-profit, 482-bed, academic medical center that is the primary teaching affiliate of Boston University School of Medicine. It is the largest and busiest provider of trauma and emergency services in New England. Committed to providing high-quality health care to all, the hospital offers a full spectrum of pediatric and adult care services including primary and family medicine and advanced specialty care with an emphasis on community-based care. Boston Medical Center offers specialized care for complex health problems and is a leading research institution, receiving more than $118 million in sponsored research funding in fiscal year 2014. It is the 11th largest recipient of funding in the U.S. from the National Institutes of Health among independent hospitals. In 1997, BMC founded Boston Medical Center Health Plan, Inc., now one of the top ranked Medicaid MCOs in the country, as a non-profit managed care organization. It does business in Massachusetts as BMC HealthNet Plan and as Well Sense Health Plan in New Hampshire, serving more than 315,000 people, collectively. Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine are partners in the Boston HealthNet – 14 community health centers focused on providing exceptional health care to residents of Boston. For more information, please visit http://www.bmc.org.

About Aruba Networks, Inc.

Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company designs and delivers Mobility-Defined Networks that empower IT departments and #GenMobile, a new generation of tech-savvy users who rely on their mobile devices for every aspect of work and personal communication. To create a mobility experience that #GenMobile and IT can rely upon, Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks™ automate infrastructure-wide performance optimization and trigger security actions that used to require manual IT intervention. The results are dramatically improved productivity and lower operational costs.

Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com. For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook, and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products visit Airheads Social at http://community.arubanetworks.com.

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