Healthcare Technology Featured Article

April 17, 2014

Slocum Dickson Medical Group Selects Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks


Healthcare facilities are the ideal environment for implementing mobile services because of the immediate access to information physicians and other staff can use to treat patients. The growth of BYOD initiatives in healthcare as well as other industries is giving customers a more engaged, efficient and productive workforce. The benefits of BYOD also come with security risks that are compelling organizations to look for the best available platform to ensure the data being transmitted in their network is adequately protected.

The Slocum Dickson Medical Group chose to replace the services it was receiving from Cisco with Aruba Networks for the growing number of Wi-Fi enabled medical devices within its facilities. Aruba Networks specializes in delivering next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise as well as designing and delivering mobility defined networks.

By choosing Aruba Networks, Slocum Dickson will be able to provide its 70 physicians, 500 staff and the 2,500 patients the organization sees every day a proven solution that will connect the Wi-Fi enabled medical devices, personal communication devices such as smart phones and tablets as well as secure guest access for all its patients.

The move to Aruba Networks was based on several different key points in which the healthcare provider believed Cisco wasn't able to provide. This included not being able to deliver a secure and easy to manage BYOD connectivity Slocum Dickson needed, as well as not being able to meet the bandwidth requirements because of the increasing number of new Wi-Fi enabled devices coming into the network across its three locations.

The physicians, staff and patients at the Slocum Dickson facilities expect reliable access when they use their personal devices anytime/anywhere, and the Aruba solution is able to deliver on that front.

“We have a lot of physicians using iPads and we found that the process for getting them connected was cumbersome with our Cisco solution. Our employees had to bring their devices into IT to have them configured, taking up valuable time for our doctors and staff, as well as the IT department,” said Charles Spinelli, Director of IT for Slocum Dickson Medical Group.

Aruba Networks was selected after several organizations were evaluated including Cisco, Extreme Networks and HP. The Mobility-Defined Network by Aruba is going to incorporate the AP-225 802.11ac access points and mobility controllers, Aruba Instant controller-less access points, Aruba mobility switches, the AirWave Network Management System and ClearPass Network Access System.

The IT department has already seen a dramatic difference compared to the Cisco platform. This includes not having a dedicated Cisco engineer to define policies on the network, an easier centralized management and a more secure and reliable network. Physicians are now able to get quickly authenticated so they can access the resources they need, including patient data, immediately.

But according to Slocum Dickson IT Director Spinelli, one of the most important aspects of the Aruba platform is the security it provides using ClearPass to connect and authenticate the hundreds of devices accessing the facility’s network daily.




Edited by Rory J. Thompson
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