Delivering seamless, hospital-wide connectivity for staff, patients and visitors is no mean feat, particularly amidst rampant digital transformation…
Hospitals have seen massive digital transformation over the last few decades, placing huge and growing demands on network connectivity.
Indeed, “the increased requirement for uninterrupted access continues to create an additional burden on the network in terms of connectivity, latency, and bandwidth,” explains Nigel Cowie, Head of Network Infrastructure, Amillan Limited. “Throw in some additional variables like asset tracking and connectivity for a plethora of other diverse systems on top of access to patient records, remote access and low latency communications for colleague consultation or even remote assistance during a procedure.”
“Hospital networks have to handle more traffic, and that puts pressure on connectivity,” adds Tim Morris, Technical Consultant, Full Control Networks. “Hospital staff work increasingly via mobile devices and tablets, to access patient records and take part in video calls. Meanwhile patients expect access to online services and streaming during their visit or stay. All these requests demand more bandwidth and more coverage, and a more reliable service. The answer to this is better WiFi connectivity across hospital locations, so that clinical staff and patients alike are not faced with gaps in signal and connectivity drops.”
86% of NHS staff surveyed in Virgin Media O2 Business’ ‘Bridging the Digital Gap in UK Healthcare’ report said that technologies such as electronic health records and IoT devices for monitoring vital medicines could significantly reduce the burden on frontline staff and decrease patient waiting times.
“While these tools offer huge benefits to staff, maximising their potential depends on robust, high-speed network connections,” says Mark Burton, UK Health & Social Care Lead, Virgin Media O2 Business. “Reliable connectivity ensures that patient data can be shared in real-time, allowing healthcare professionals to make more informed decisions – the outcome of which is faster diagnoses, greater coordinated care, and ultimately, better patient outcomes.”
Connecting the modern hospital
The increasing reliance on digital health technologies, real-time data transmission, and interconnected devices has introduced a range of connectivity issues like network congestion and bandwidth limitations, poor wireless connectivity and dead zones, and latency and real-time data transmission delays.
“Hospital buildings range from very old to brand new; the active switching equipment in a LAN may have a typical refresh window of 5-10 years depending on budgets, while the WiFi might be upgraded in a 3-5 year window – yet the connecting devices potentially change every 1-3 years,” highlights Cowie. “Typically, however, cabling in older buildings has been in place for significantly longer and it’s not unusual to find multiple generations of overcrowded cabling as it has been added piecemeal.”
According to Burton, a piecemeal approach to digital transformation can often create fragmented systems that are tough to manage, maintain, and scale: “this leads to inefficiencies like data silos and poor communication between departments, which ultimately gets in the way of providing timely, high-quality care. Adopting a holistic approach ensures that staff have seamless access to the digital services they need, improving collaboration across departments and making administrative tasks easier. Investing in a scalable, well-designed network infrastructure isn’t just a technical upgrade, but a strategic move.”
“A concern I see in the future is the cabling itself. In upcoming designs, the layer 1 distribution network needs to form an important part of any re-design or upgrade,” adds Cowie. “For example, it would not be uncommon to see 10-30 WiFi Access Points (APs) all cabled to one or two switches in one location – in the past, they would have 1-2Gbps connectivity each, but with WiFi6E and WiFi7 having multi-Gb connectivity (and with the predicted release of WiFi 8 in 2028 requiring multiple high GB connections per AP) the backbone of the network needs to be suitably upgraded to support edge capabilities.”
Meanwhile, Morris believes that with so much demand for connectivity, the issue is how to manage traffic requests. Today’s patient traffic volumes are much higher, and patients and visitors alike expect to be able to stream their favourite shows or take part in video calls.
“More coverage and capacity are needed across the network, which means looking at the APs that you have in place, their signal coverage and how much traffic they can support. Managing overall bandwidth into a Trust is not the issue; it is getting that capacity delivered to where it is needed across large estates that can have traditional building environments that block signals or degrade access,” says Morris.
Burton notes that challenges also exist when transferring data between hospitals in different regions due to inconsistent digital infrastructure and varying levels of technological maturity. 85% of hospital staff surveyed in London, Belfast, and Edinburgh reported that current connectivity solutions effectively support efficient patient care, but this drops to just 65% in the Southeast, Southwest, and Yorkshire and the Humber.
Moreover, “the issue extends beyond hospitals to GP practices and mental health institutions, where inadequate connectivity can create backlogs and disrupt the seamless sharing of patient information,” shares Burton.
The ultimate future-proof hospital network
Creating a future-proof hospital network requires planning for scalability, security, and performance to meet the demands of rapidly evolving healthcare technologies.
“We have seen firsthand how replacing legacy tech has enabled hospital trusts to meet the needs of their community. As the NHS continues to evolve and innovate, the speed of technological advancement will only increase,” warns Burton. “To keep up, healthcare professionals must focus on integrating tools, maintaining transparent communication, and strategically investing in technology.”
Cowie believes that the following components are key to future-proofing hospital networks: a modular environment with solid layer 1 diverse infrastructure; intelligent, scalable, active equipment capable of layer 7 data analysis while delivering layer 2/3 connectivity; an integrated management platform; and RF active monitoring technology.
Additionally, “WiFi will play an ever-growing requirement within any network. The additional frequencies initially deployed in Wifi6E added to most enterprise APs having configurable radios will allow deployments to circumvent highly dense radio environments and potentially mitigate the negative effects of appliance interference,” opines Cowie. “While WiFi7/8 will yield extra speed, capacity and capability, I believe the most important benefit to a WLAN network is that deployment be configured to suit the RF environment. Default or auto-choosing wide 80MHz or higher channels throughout may yield higher per client bandwidth, but it will eat up all the available RF space. Vendors advertise their technology as being intelligent but it’s often not efficient in its auto configuration – you don’t need to deliver 1Gbps to WiFi clients in a corridor or storeroom and the channels would be better deployed to wards or meeting spaces.”
Today’s clinicians want access to patient records from their tablet or mobile devices so they can provide care where the patient is, rather than being stuck to one location. As such, there’s a much greater requirement for better wireless coverage and speed.
And, as always, healthcare network projects generally come down to budget – what are you going to prioritise and why, says Morris: “for hospital teams looking at how to evolve their networks, getting the right guidance on where to update their existing systems and where to implement new infrastructure is essential.”
