wireless infrastructure

ABI Research is saying worldwide sales of Wi-Fi-enabled health care products will hit $4.9 billion in 2014, an increase of nearly 70 percent over 2009 levels. The projected boom is based on the $20 billion of stimulus funds earmarked for the digitizing of medical records and health care reform.

Trapeze Networks has rolled out its new Trapeze LA-200E Location Appliance, a system that’s designed to locate and track anything  broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal. The LA-200E is touted as the first product that supports locating and tracking 802.11n clients. It works with Wi-Fi equipment from a number of WLAN infrastructure providers, along withTrapeze Networks NonStop Wireless infrastructure.

With a limited wireless infrastructure and a host of challenges that included dealing with multiple cellular carriers, increased risk of interference with biomedical equipment, and "dead" spots throughout its facility, HealthAlliance Hospital, a member of the UMass Memorial Health Care system, viewed the prospect of continuously expanding new mobile technologies as a logistical tangle involving many more wireless service providers and costly installations. What HealthAlliance needed was an integrated wireless solution that could handle its current and future mobility needs.

Tacoma, Wash.-based Franciscan Health System has deployed multiple gigabit wireless links, providing secure transmission of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), voice, and data communications among several hospitals and its service center. The five-hospitl system selected BridgeWave’s unlicensed 60 GHz radios for uninterrupted gigabit connectivity and ultra-low latency performance.

Healthcare industry veteran Rob McCray said at the Wireless-Life Sciences Convergence Summit in San Diego a few weeks ago that "we may well look back and say 2009 was the year of inflection for wireless health.” By wireless health, he's referring to healthcare information and services delivered via wireless networks and devices.

Freescale Semiconductor has endorsed the recent certification of the ZigBee Health Care standard by the Continua Health Alliance, a coalition of leading health care and technology companies joined to improve the quality of personal health care. ZigBee Health Care is one of the two low power wireless standards recently adopted by Continua. With roughly 60 percent market share, Freescale is a leading provider of IEEE 802.15.4 products, the core technology on which ZigBee platforms are developed.