Case Study: Doctor's Orders

July 9, 2003

By Lois Mentrup

Broadband wireless access is a cure for costly communications.

The days of "take two aspirin and see me in the morning" are over. Today's physicians need immediate access to information to treat patients more effectively.

Most doctors' work is based on a "must have it now" mentality, says Patrick H. Holloway, CEO of Oklahoma Cardiovascular Associates (OCA), the state's largest cardiovascular group, based in Oklahoma City. So when OCA decided to expand its practice-which meant opening more offices-it turned to broadband wireless access (BWA) technology to give its physicians easy access to vital diagnostic tools such as ultrasound, nuclear and MRI images.

Today, the technology used in Clear Wireless broadband allows OCA physicians at any of the organization's remote sites to quickly access these images-which often are as large as 600MB in size-from a central Picture Archiving and Communications (PAC) database. This saves time by drastically reducing the need for doctors to copy images onto CDs prior to leaving the central catheterization lab. And the images gathered by the practice's mobile diagnostic imaging units, which are equipped with imaging gear such as ultrasound machines, can be transferred to the central database so they are accessible from any remote location. Physicians also use the wireless broadband system for basic business functions such as e-mail and access to the group's Cerner® electronic medical record system.

When OCA first recognized the need to upgrade from its existing network, which consisted of dial-up and a few T1 connections, Holloway approached a local wireline service provider for a cost estimate. He soon discovered that not only would he have to pay a high monthly access fee, but he would be at the mercy of that provider's existing fiber, which didn't reach some of his remote locations.

That's when Holloway turned to Paul Siegerist, president of the Tulsa, Okla.-based systems integrator FDDI, who suggested that OCA consider installing a wireless high-speed wide area network. Going wireless would give OCA more flexibility and eliminate the recurring costs associated with renting T1 lines or fiber connections.

"Would you like to get rid of an eternal cost? That's what I tell my clients," Siegerist says. With wireless broadband, OCA could get multiple times the speed of T1 lines more cost-effectively than any wire-based solution. According to Siegerist's estimates, the return on investment on the Canopy system took less than seven months. Now OCA saves money every month by not having to pay for access to fiber or T1 lines.

Even better, "If I move offices, I just move my [antenna] panels," Holloway says. "The flexibility and the speed are just great."

A Secure Practice

Advanced security features makes this wireless broadband technology an ideal solution for health care organizations, which must comply with strict privacy and security requirements outlined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Specifically, wireless broadband, as deployed by Clear, allows healthcare organizations to comply with HIPAA by using industry-proven authentication and encryption technologies.

The system supports DES or Data Encryption Standard, which protects transmissions between radios, and can also add Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) capabilities for multiple layers of security. Thanks to these advanced security techniques, even the decryption computer used by the Defense Department "would take longer to crack our code than the universe is old," says Joe Schneider, a technology evangelist for the system.

Clear Wireless broadband is also more robust than alternative products, with an industry-leading carrier-to-interference ratio of 3:1 dB. This allows the radios to operate even amid high RF noise, which was very helpful for Siegerist who encountered some interference when he first deployed the wireless network.

"These wireless broadband products have such a good carrier-to-interference ratio, we just tweaked the alignment a little and manipulated the frequencies to avoid most of the interference," Siegerist says. By retuning, Siegerist was able to engineer the wireless system for "five nines" reliability-which is critical, particularly given that the OCA views BWA as an integral part of its business.

"This is just vital to our daily operations," Holloway says. "I don't know how we would do this now without wireless technology."