Healthcare Case Study

Defining the Business Case

Hemendinger explained that to realize these goals, Lifespan directed its attention to giving healthcare providers the ability to perform their duties by leveraging WLANs to make mobility a mainstay. According to Hemendinger, "When you understand how physicians and clinicians work, you can then provide a service which makes a difference at the point of care with the patient."

Hemendinger relates that over time, enhanced patient care through the use of mobility improved efficiencies within the clinical process, which resulted in an "it's the right thing to do" model. In essence, they reduced the traditional return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) requirements to something less significant in the decision-making process. "On paper this technology and its deployment is expensive, but when you go onto the floors and watch the clinical staff utilizing these capabilities to provide complete diagnosis and patient treatment, its cost is easily justified," says Hemendinger.

Using this argument, Lifespan's Information Services executive management was able to sit with senior leadership and affiliate boards of directors to explain a comprehensive, clinical system strategy and the valuable role infrastructure would play. Wireless was a tactical element of the plan and would contribute to the high adoption rate and use by the physician and clinician. Although it was costly, the benefits that Lifespan gained revolved around a cultural change that positively affected the care of the patient.

The efficiencies centered on how the wireless network provides the foundation for immediate access to clinical systems, speeding the delivery of care, standardizing care practices, reducing interface errors at all points where they might otherwise be made, and saving on now-unnecessary transcription costs.

The Strategic Value

In healthcare, time is the difference between life and death. Keeping this in mind, Lifespan's strategic plan is to take the critical healthcare information to the patient rather than requiring the physician or clinician to seek out the information. Hemendinger further explains the change in philosophy that provided the catalyst to deploy a pervasive computing environment within the continuum of care.

According to Hemendinger, "We made on a cultural shift. We deployed wireless not to reduce wire but to give function; the wireless network has changed processes and spawned a revolution in attitudes and culture within Lifespan hospitals. Originally conceived to support availability of data for physician order entry [POM system] and clinical work, the wireless network has accomplished that and much more."

For Lifespan to achieve these numbers, it had to develop their technology and application for mobile use across all its enterprise WLANs.