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Hoglund and Varga: Building a Reliable Wireless Medical Device Network

7. Reproducing field conditions and modeling “what if 9. Ongoing lab and site testing of network firmware
” scenarios in the lab to simulate individual hospital changes and devices software upgrades
environments
The WLAN patient monitoring deployment: what and why
Figure 1. Wireless patient monitoring integration process
In the area of patient monitoring, the actual patient-use
model is critical to a successful monitoring selection and
implementation. Before the technical requirements can
be solved, the clinical requirements need to be addressed
and understood, including:

• Where are the patients going to be monitored? A good
starting point is to sit down with CAD drawings of the
hospital floor plan and have clinical staff highlight
all the areas where patients need to be monitored.
For example, would a patient need to be transported
from the ICU down the elevators to radiology and/or
therapy areas? If so, then adequate wireless coverage
would be needed to ensure real-time connectivity.

• How many patients are going to be monitored simul-
taneously, at maximum patient census?

• Where will the staff monitoring these patients be
located?
Once the clinical requirements are vetted out and agreed
to, then the technical requirements can be addressed. The
following questions should also be discussed:
• What are the anticipated growth requirements (scale)?
• What is the current network infrastructure in place
to support the new patient monitoring system
requirements?
• What, if any, network remediation needs to be
completed?
Based upon an understanding of the medical device’s
network characteristics and the existing network infra-
structure, an accurate WLAN design can be initiated. The

8. Onsite assessment to ensure successful deployments
out of the gate Figure 2. Example of marked up hospital floor plan, highlighting
all places where patients will be monitored

47 J Global Clinical Engineering Special Issue 1: 42-49; 2018