AAMI FAQs Address Challenges of Wi-Fi in Hospitals

As the number of wireless medical devices continues to increase, so does the opportunity for healthcare providers to improve efficiency and patient care. Hospitals that embrace wireless technologies can improve patient safety, data accuracy, and enable mobility for both medical devices and patients. A fully integrated hospital, or the Connected Hospital, will become a reality in the near future and will allow every device to connect and communicate for accurate patient records and real-time data analysis. Within the Connected Hospital, nurses can monitor multiple patients remotely from one main station, receive alerts, and observe data captured each second on the patient’s health. With accurate and up-to-date patient information, doctors can then make more informed decisions, leading to better patient outcomes. Ultimately, patients will always receive the correct dosage of the right medication, the greatest care from medical staff, and will feel more comfortable not being tied down by wired medical devices.

In recent months, various organizations and personnel have been working to educate hospital IT and generate guidelines and interoperability standards for wireless technology in hospitals. Incentives, documentation, and assistance have also been created for hospital IT to make informed decisions, and an entire ecosystem of medical device manufacturers, wireless module manufacturers, and infrastructure providers exits for IT professionals to consult for guidance and support.

For example, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has developed a series of FAQs in response to the challenges associated with Wi-Fi in hospitals and the need for healthcare IT to have access to educational resources. Titled, “FAQs for the Wireless Challenge in Healthcare”, the FAQs help healthcare technology, IT, and facilities’ personnel understand the state of wireless technologies, their use in healthcare, and how they can best be managed. When hospitals are educated on how to create a secure and reliable network, they can then take advantage of the secure wireless connectivity that Wi-Fi provides.

Learn more about the vision of the Connected Hospital and gain access to our infographic, video, and other educational materials and resources, here.