Hospital wireless networking infrastructure

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Uses and Importance

As more networked and interconnected technologies continue to be incorporated into healthcare settings, the importance of having secure and reliable wireless networks in hospitals will only continue to grow. This is further affected by the different tasks expected of the network by different users, each with varying degrees of how critical they are. In a medical setting, there will inevitably be applications that are critical on a level that directly and immediately affects patient health and safety such as telemetry. These systems are expected to work for long periods of time with an absolute minimum of lost data. On a business level, there will also be systems that affect productivity and can affect broadly delay or affect care. These applications, such as locating systems and VoIPs can require significant bandwidth and the ability to access from across the hospital setting. There are also increasingly more demands and expectations from patients and visitors who want to research terms or symptoms, coordinate with family, manage their life outside the hospital, and with a wide range of entertainment. While a lack here may not directly decrease the outcomes of patients, it could certainly be a significant factor in satisfaction. [1] [2]

History

Starting in the 1970’s, analog telemetry devices started showing up collecting a massive amount of patient monitoring data, and over time progressed to digital systems that eventually showed noticeable improvements in the amount of dropped data. The transmission of these data was far from perfect, however, as was seen in 1999 when a high definition television station tested new equipment near Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. As this test was broadcast on the same frequencies as the hospital’s telemetry systems, several of the monitors were rendered completely useless. This incident prompted the FDA and AAMI to work with the FCC to establish specific frequency bands for medical use. Since then, there has been progressive movement away from television frequencies and instead embracing wireless local area networks (WLAN) with IEEE 802.11 standards. These networks have the advantages of many more nonoverlapping channels to broadcast data due to having more bandwidth than all radio, cellular, and broadcast television combined. Additionally, the WLANs have the ability to reuse channels between devices that are much closer together.[3]

Securing and HIPAA Compliance

While the increased connectivity and reliability of a WLAN has proven to be a major boon to hospitals so far, the fact that so much data is essentially floating in the air around a hospital certainly raises some security concerns. While the final HIPAA rules do not specifically address wireless networks, the Security Rule established to protect PHI is certainly applicable. This rule lays out three types of safeguards that are required:

1. Administrative safeguards, which controls the management of organizations and procedures for handling policy violations.
2. Physical safeguards, which control access and changes to equipment
3. Technical safeguards, which control security, encryption, and audit logging of data and networks.

For a wireless network, there are a number of standards laid out in HIPAA that would be applicable and important to consider including Security Management Process, Workstation Security, Access Control, Person or Entity Authentication, and Transmission Security to name a few. Ultimately, the security of a network should be addressed as an ongoing process in order to address changing technologies, regulations, needs, and history.[4] [5]

References

  1. PCWorld . Hospital Networks Take Key Role in Health Care as IT Makes Further Clincial Advances. Retrieved October 30, 2015, from http://www.pcworld.com/article/260089/hospital_networks_take_key_role_in_health_care_as_it_makes_further_clincial_advances.html
  2. MeRu networks. Meru Uninterrupted Care Network, An Architecture Overview. Retrieved October 30, 2015, from http://www.merunetworks.com/collateral/white-papers/hospital-wi-fi-uninterrupted-care-network-whitepaper.pdf
  3. Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine . Medical-Grade, Mission-Critical Wireless Networks [Designing an Enterprise Mobility Solution in the Healthcare Environment] . Published March 7, 2008. Retrieved at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4469643
  4. SANS Institute Reading Room. Securing Wireless Networks for HIPAA Compliance. Submitted December 23, 2003. Retrieved at https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/awareness/securing-wireless-networks-hipaa-compliance-1335
  5. Cisco Meraki white paper. HIPAA Compliance for the Wireless LAN. Published June, 2015. Retrieved at https://meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/meraki_whitepaper_HIPAA.pdf

Submitted by Jeffrey Hunter