Healthcare mobility and wirelesssolutions from IBM

Wireless innovations to improve your healthcare operations and patient satisfaction

Highlights

■ Improve staff productivity,

patient response times, asset

management and tracking, and

quality of care through enhanced

communication

■ Establish a secure and robust

wireless infrastructure to support

your healthcare mobility and real-

time tracking solutions

■ Integrate multiple communication

systems and networks, to simplify

your infrastructure and reduce

costs

In the demanding healthcare

environment—where communication

is critical—organizations are striving to

find the most effective ways to put clini-

cians and staff in touch with the

resources, assets and information they

need to reduce costs, and improve

patient safety and quality of care.

Healthcare provider solutions from

IBM provide new technologies and

solutions that can dramatically improve

clinician productivity, data accuracy,

patient response times, and quality of

care. IBM offers a wide range of mobil-

ity and wireless solutions designed

specifically for the healthcare industry,

giving your staff members the tools and

information they need to stay in touch

and informed.

Mobility and wireless solutions can help

healthcare organizations:

● Reduce medical errors and risk.

● Improve responsiveness and consis-

tency of patient care.

● Enable more effective care to an ever-

increasing number of patients.

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● Provide higher visibility and accounta-

bility for equipment and patients in

real time.

● Ensure high-speed access to critical

information across the clinical

ecosystem.

● Reduce the cost and complexity of

multiple communication systems,

including Wi-Fi, cellular, paging, nurse

call and telephony.

Healthcare provider organizations can

benefit from the implementation of

robust, proven mobility and wireless

solutions in numerous ways. They can

uncover significant cost savings to opti-

mize scarce clinical resources and

reduce medical asset loss. They can

offer improved quality of care and gain

a higher rate of patient satisfaction.

Finally, they can enable more efficient

processes and workflows, which can

facilitate compliance with regulations

such as the Healthcare Insurance

Portability and Accountability Act, The

Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO)

regulations, and Sarbanes-Oxley.

IBM as your trusted partner for

implementing healthcare system

solutions

For healthcare organizations looking to

leverage and integrate their communi-

cations, operations, and information

flow, IBM can provide a wide range of

industry-leading mobility and wireless

solutions to meet your unique needs.

IBM healthcare solutions include wire-

less infrastructure, wireless voice com-

munication, real-time location services,

event-driven notification services, enter-

prise asset management, and patient

workflow and data analysis.

IBM offers a wide range of mobility and wireless solutions and services for healthcare providers, addressingyour unique requirements with a comprehensive, vendor-neutral approach.

IBM’s healthcare workflow consulting

practices can help address critical

hospital initiatives to improve patient

care, patient safety, asset optimization,

and supply chain efficiencies.

IBM’s methodology and extensive

knowledge of best practices in health-

care can be leveraged to meet hospital

quality, safety and financial goals.

IBM also offers a full project lifecycle of

technical services for mobility and wire-

less solutions, including strategy,

assessment, design, integration,

deployment and ongoing maintenance.

For example, to help ensure successful

implementation of your wireless voice

communication, event-driven notifica-

tion and real-time tracking solutions,

IBM can assess your existing wireless

network to determine whether it pro-

vides a secure, robust infrastructure

capable of supporting your healthcare

mobility initiatives. If the necessary

foundation is not in place, IBM can

provide a vendor-neutral approach to

selecting a wireless infrastructure tai-

lored for your environment’s business

and technical requirements.

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Because IBM has extensive expertise

providing wireless solution design serv-

ices for clients and environments world-

wide, they can offer your organization

specific recommendations and design

plans, taking into consideration busi-

ness goals and applications, perform-

ance, availability, security and ongoing

management. Once the design has

been created, IBM will take preparatory

steps to help ensure a successful

implementation. These steps can

include procuring equipment, develop-

ing detailed configurations, and testing

configurations in a lab environment.

Finally, IBM can deploy the solution as

an initial pilot before fully implementing

it in the production environment, and

can provide your staff with training and

support.

These world-class services reflect

industry best practices, unmatched

technology and solution expertise from

IBM, and the depth and breadth of

experience IBM has gained in the

healthcare industry.

Wireless voice communication

systems for timely decision making

IBM can help your organization set up

mobile voice communication between

healthcare professionals at the point

of care in order to increase employee

productivity, streamline operations,

facilitate decision making, and improve

patient satisfaction. Polycom

SpectraLink Wireless Telephone, for

example, can provide instant wireless

voice communication, which users con-

trol with spoken commands. Mobile

staff members can be immediately con-

nected to the people and resources

they need. This solution reduces phone

tag, overhead paging and the need to

physically search for a person—giving

healthcare providers more time for

patients.

Polycom SpectraLink Wireless

Telephone handsets can be registered

in up to 10 systems, including nurse

call systems, patient monitoring, real-

time location services, and speech

recognition, enabling healthcare

providers who travel between locations

to bring along their handsets. Using

Polycom SpectraLink Wireless

Telephone, you can send and receive

text messages, get help from specified

departments, or communicate with co-

workers or outside resources instantly.

IBM can help you develop a design and

deployment strategy through a require-

ments gathering workshop, develop

system design, procure and configure

handsets, conduct system installation,

and test and provide end-user training.

Real-time location services for

enhanced resource utilization

IBM can provide visibility into the condi-

tion of medical assets, equipment,

patients, clinicians and staff members

using real-time location services (RTLS),

helping your teams respond and admin-

ister care more quickly and safely where

and when care is needed. RTLS can

offer healthcare providers dramatic ben-

efits, help minimize theft and loss,

improve asset utilization, reduce capital

expenditures, and improve overall

patient safety and quality of care.

Real-time tracking solutions collect

information that enables hospitals to

improve workflow processes by pin-

pointing bottlenecks. Understanding

the location, time and condition of

resources can help improve patient

care by enabling quick identification of

the nearest available equipment

required for care. RTLS can also facili-

tate the monitoring of safety processes

such as hand washing and improve

hospital financials by enabling auto-

matic billing of specialty equipment to

specific patients.

IBM has a thorough understanding

of the diverse real-time tracking and

sensor-based options such as RFID

used in healthcare environments and

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can help you select the right technology

and solution to fit your needs. For

clients who require active Wi-Fi real-

time location technology leveraging an

existing network, IBM partners with

market leaders such as Aeroscout and

Ekahau. IBM also supports other real-

time tracking technologies, working

with partners like Sonitor, which pro-

vides an ultrasound system that is

immune to electromagnetic interference

and provides sub-room level location

accuracy. Once the technology and

provider are identified, IBM can help

you develop system design and imple-

ment a robust and scalable solution.

Event-driven notification services to

help you address critical issues

quickly

IBM can help your organization

implement event-driven, real-time

notification services. Systems such as

IBM WebSphere® Premises Server and

Globestar’s ConnexALL can integrate

communication resources that enable

intelligent, real-time notification to

healthcare providers and other parties

wherever they are. Important data gen-

erated by hospital back-end systems

and communication systems such as

nurse call systems can be transmitted

to mobile devices via the hospital sys-

tem’s I/O gateway in the form of alerts,

and appropriate action can be taken by

recipients based on the nature and

severity of the alerts.

The use of these systems can translate

to more accurate and timely medication

administration, effective remote patient

monitoring, higher patient security,

instant and accurate medical record

entry, and more effective patient bed

management, resulting in improved

quality of care. You can also enable

enhanced patient location tracking for

patients who might wander, as well as

for visitor, patient, clinician and staff

safety to sound alerts if they enter a

secured area. Replay features can help

identify who has come into contact with

contagiously infected patients, staff or

equipment and help quickly quarantine

outbreaks.

Event-driven, real-time notification sys-

tems can also help with building man-

agement, resulting in enhanced patient

and clinical experiences. For instance,

staff members can receive information

regarding HVAC, building security sys-

tems and fire alarms so that these

issues can be addressed before they

cause harm or discomfort.

Enterprise asset management for easy

access to information and resources

IBM has the solution expertise to facili-

tate critical medical equipment man-

agement, supply chain management,

contact management and service level

agreement tracking. With a robust,

scalable system such as IBM Maximo®

Asset Management in place, your

organization can better monitor and

manage assets, including compliance

with governmental and industry regula-

tions, reporting requirements, and opti-

mization of inventory and capital.

Asset management systems offer

instrument calibration, support for elec-

tronic signatures, and support for cor-

rective and preventive action. They can

help your organization use assets more

effectively. In addition to improving the

timeliness and accuracy of information,

such systems can help ensure proper

maintenance, improving the reliability of

assets and resulting in a higher return

on investment. IBM can help you

develop a deployment strategy through

a requirements gathering workshop,

develop system design, conduct sys-

tem installation, and test and provide

end-user training.

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Workflow and data analysis for

intelligent business decision making

IBM enables an information-based

approach to healthcare delivery

through patient workflow management

and data analysis using systems such

as IBM Cognos® business intelligence

software. These systems collect critical

business data across the enterprise and

enable you to view information in a way

that makes sense for your environment.

Information can be viewed through

dashboards, scorecards, analysis

reports, queries and alerts. Business

intelligence can help you to understand

what is happening in your healthcare

organization, identify factors that under-

lie those events, and provide you with

opportunities to take action on critical

issues before they impact business,

and more importantly, patient safety

and satisfaction. Business intelligence

systems can target specific areas of the

hospital including people, assets and

tools. Access to information presented

in this way gives you real-time visibility

into performance.

IBM Prolink project management

methodology for business process

improvement

IBM can also provide project manage-

ment services including process

re-engineering and optimization using

IBM Prolink methodology. This process

consulting tool for operations and strat-

egy can help your organization map

current processes and compare them

to industry best practices. It can help

you improve both business and clinical

processes, and enable you to imple-

ment a business-centric IT foundation

to support your mobility and wireless

systems.

Prolink enables healthcare providers to

understand the changes to their busi-

nesses before implementing new tech-

nologies. In this way, you can prepare

your staff for the ways in which new

technologies such as mobility and wire-

less solutions will affect everyday job

duties. The stages in a Prolink imple-

mentation include defining expected

outcomes from operational changes,

introducing metrics to guide workflow

and system functionality, refining work

processes, and evaluating results

against measurable objectives defined

at the inception of the project.

The IBM difference

IBM has successfully worked with

healthcare providers worldwide to

implement cost-effective, security-rich

mobility and wireless solutions, offering

each organization a customized

approach and proven solution.

IBM offers a comprehensive portfolio of

technologies, software and services,

from simple initial assessments and

pilots to full-enterprise deployments, to

help deliver robust and flexible solutions

that best fit your environment and busi-

ness needs.

IBM has a team of highly skilled serv-

ices practitioners and a broad ecosys-

tem of IBM Business Partners to help

deliver innovative solutions that can be

integrated with your existing healthcare

systems. The capabilities IBM can pro-

vide include strategic planning, assess-

ment and implementation of mobility

and wireless infrastructures and con-

verged communications systems, net-

working architecture optimization,

end-user support, device management,

telecom expense management,

and security and privacy systems

implementation.

Experienced IBM consultants can iden-

tify the right technologies and software,

design the most appropriate solutions,

and implement them using industry

best practices. They can help health-

care organizations avoid common tech-

nology pitfalls and enable them to focus

on their core competencies—delivering

high quality patient care cost effectively.

For more information

To learn more about healthcare mobility

and wireless solutions from IBM, please

contact your IBM representative, or visit

ibm.com/healthcare.

Additionally, IBM Global Financing can

tailor financing solutions to your specific

IT needs. For more information on great

rates, flexible payment plans and loans,

and asset buyback and disposal, visit:

ibm.com/financing.

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2009

IBM CorporationNew Orchard RoadArmonk, NY 10504U.S.A.

Produced in the United States of AmericaFebruary 2009All Rights Reserved

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