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Reliable Wi-Fi connectivity is essential to modern medical facilities, with technology and connected devices playing an increasingly critical role in patient care. Building and maintaining a high-performance Wi-Fi network helps you support medical staff, ensure seamless communication, and provide top-notch patient care.
In this article, we explore some of the most common obstacles faced by hospitals when it comes to managing medical-grade Wi-Fi networks. We’ll describe each obstacle and provide actionable strategies for overcoming them.
We discuss the following topics:
- Physical and Environmental Obstacles
- Too Many Users and Devices
- Security and Regulatory Compliance
- Long Term Performance Monitoring and Optimization
Focus on patient care, not troubleshooting Wi-Fi: Learn more about 7SIGNAL.
Physical and Environmental Obstacles
To kick things off, let’s look at some physical and environmental hurdles. Specifically:
- Managing Interference From the Physical Environment
- Identifying and Eliminating Wi-Fi Dead Zones
- Supporting Seamless Roaming
1. Managing Interference From the Physical Environment
It’s notoriously difficult to set up wireless networks in hospitals. Consider the physical characteristics of medical environments: dense building materials like concrete and masonry, large metal objects, countless electronic devices, and constantly moving medical equipment—all of which are known to affect and disrupt Wi-Fi signals. Compounding matters, medical devices and IoT (Internet of Things) equipment often compete for the same bandwidth, further degrading performance.
How IT can address these issues:
- Use hospital-grade Wi-Fi equipment with network optimization technologies.
- Deploy automated channel selection to minimize overlap and reduce interference from external devices.
- Regularly audit signal strength and adjust frequency channels to adapt to environmental changes.
2. Identifying and Eliminating Wi-Fi Dead Zones
Wi-Fi dead zones—which are areas where signals are weak or non-existent—make it difficult for your staff to access critical systems wherever and whenever access is required. This disrupts patient care, staff communication, and more. These dead zones often occur in large or isolated areas of a hospital.
How IT can address these issues:
- Conduct a Wi-Fi heat map analysis to locate dead zones.
- Deploy extenders, repeaters, or additional access points to cover weak areas.
- Optimize antenna placement to ensure even signal distribution across all critical spaces.
3. Supporting Seamless Roaming
Hospital staff, patients, and visitors are constantly on the move, placing extra stress on your network’s ability to handle seamless transitions between access points. Without proper roaming configurations and constant network monitoring and optimization, jittery connections and dropped signals can also affect communication and patient care.
How IT can address these issues:
- Deploy access points in strategic locations to enable seamless handoffs during roaming.
- Fine-tune WLAN settings to minimize delays and eliminate bottlenecks.
- Test roaming performance regularly to ensure real-world reliability.
Too Many Users and Devices
Next, let’s turn to the client side of the equation, focusing on:
- Designing for Unpredictable Density
- Scaling for Device Overload
- Addressing Bandwidth-Hungry Applications
1. Designing for Unpredictable Density
Hospitals are hectic environments, with constantly fluctuating user and device densities across different areas. Your waiting rooms, for example, may experience predictable demand, but hallways, care rooms, and emergency facilities may see sudden and significant spikes that overwhelm your network.
How IT can address these issues:
- Plan networks for maximum capacity based on peak usage scenarios.
- Conduct site surveys and network assessments to understand density patterns.
- Adjust access point placement to optimize performance in high-density areas.
2. Scaling for Device Overload
Modern hospitals are flooded with connected devices, from smartphones carried in by guests to life-saving IoT medical equipment used in operating rooms and other care settings. And more devices, with increasingly large capacity demands, are on the way. As medical IoT use cases expand and as guests continue to bring in data-hungry personal devices, scaling your network will be a constant challenge.
How IT can address these issues:
- Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E to support high device density and faster speeds.
- Use network segmentation to isolate mission-critical devices from guest and BYOD traffic.
- Implement a wireless network management system to continuously monitor and manage device connectivity.
3. Addressing Bandwidth-Hungry Applications
Mismanaged bandwidth allocation can lead to frustrating slowdowns or outages. As noted above, hospitals rely on a range of bandwidth-heavy applications like electronic health records (EHR) systems, telemedicine platforms, and video conferencing tools. Think of this as your "operational overhead"—the essential costs to keep things running. But on top of that, there are the “discretionary expenses” of personal devices from staff and guests, which can strain the network further if not managed properly.
How IT can address these issues:
- Perform traffic analysis to identify bandwidth-intensive applications and devices.
- Prioritize essential applications with Quality of Service (QoS) settings.
- Expand network capacity to handle increased demand during peak usage.
Security and Regulatory Compliance
Since hospitals manage a lot of sensitive patient data, they need to be prepared to face both crippling cyberattacks and pressure from strict regulations like HIPAA. Balancing security with usability in such a demanding environment is a constant challenge.
How IT can address these issues:
- Use strong encryption protocols (e.g., WPA3) and enforce multi-factor authentication.
- Implement strict access control policies for guest users and BYOD devices.
- Regularly update security systems, conduct vulnerability tests, and provide staff training on cybersecurity best practices.
READ MORE: Why You Need to Optimize Your Hospital's Wi-Fi Network
Long Term Performance Monitoring and Optimization
Wi-Fi networks in hospitals are dynamic, with frequent changes to environmental factors, devices, and user behavior. Without regular monitoring, small issues can escalate into major problems that disrupt operations and compromise patient care.
How IT can address these issues:
- Conduct regular network performance tests to identify bottlenecks and improve efficiency.
- Deploy a wireless network management system to monitor performance in real time.
- Leverage performance data to optimize configurations and prepare for future demand.
Learn More From the 7SIGNAL Experts
We’re always here to answer your Wi-Fi questions at 7SIGNAL. Our enterprise Wi-Fi optimization platform helps you plan and execute a healthier network. Contact us to learn more.
7SIGNAL® is the leader in enterprise Wi-Fi optimization, providing insight into wireless networks and control over Wi-Fi performance so businesses and organizations can thrive. Our cloud-based platform continually tests and measures Wi-Fi performance at the edges of the network, enabling fast solutions to digital experience issues and stronger connections for mission-critical users, devices, and applications. Learn more at www.7signal.com.