Considerations for the effective management of LANs in hospital buildings

Abstract

According to a joint survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare of Japan, over 90% of Japanese hospitals have introduced wireless LAN. However, about half of the hospitals that have wireless LANs have reported having experienced problems, with the most common cause being inappropriate management of signal propagation. Other factors include an excessive number of terminals connected to one AP, an information load that approaches or exceeds the limits of the network’s capacity, and a lack of information sharing during design and construction. There is also a move towards converting in-hospital PHS, which has been used mainly for nurse calls, to smartphones, which also provide voice communication over a wireless LAN. Furthermore, the number of medical devices with wireless LAN communication functions is increasing. In recent years, issues have emerged regarding the coexistence of wireless LANs used by patients. This includes security aspects, as with problematic operation of wireless LANs. The above could become even more significant considerations in future wireless LAN utilization. In this paper, we summarize issues we have identified, clarify their causes, and present possible future problems and current and future measures to be taken for their solution.