NHS Trust gets WLAN

A world-renowned heart and lung centre in the UK has deployed a wireless local area network (WLAN) to help improve care and allow full mobility of its services.

Employees at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust will now be able to access patient data regardless of their location in the hospital.

The WLAN will also help the trust achieve its target of becoming "paper-light" by 2010/2011, with all records available electronically.

Two hospitals 20 miles apart, at Uxbridge and Chelsea in London, make up the trust and now information such as x-ray images will be able to be transferred across the sites quickly.

"Hospitals operate in a totally mobile way. Clinicians, nurses and patients are continually on the move, and in order to deliver effective care, staff must be granted universal access to patient data," said Graham Everson, the trust's director of IT and telecommunications.

"Wireless technology perfectly supports the core clinical functions of a hospital, and thus forms the bedrock of our IT strategy."

The trust was named the best hospital for dealing with heart problems by the Independent in March.