Wireless LAN phone can survive hospital environment

A US-based company has developed a ‘rugged’ wireless phone specifically for the UK wireless healthcare market that can survive being dropped several stories and having fluid spilled over it.

The NetLink h340 (right), manufactured by Colorado-based SpectraLink, is designed to work over low-power hospital wireless LANs, integrate into the main hospital switchboard, and also run specific applications provided by third parties.

For instance, software can be installed on the phone that will link into patient alarm systems, notifying healthcare professionals if the vital signs of any patients they are responsible for give cause for concern.

Gary Mead, international vice president of SpectraLink EMEA, told E-Health Insider: "You now have an  increasing number of applications developed that can then be relayed straight to the Spectralink phone."

He added that the h340 phones had been designed in response to feedback from staff using phones already supplied across SpectraLink networks, who wanted something that was durable and also with backlighting; a specific request by staff working in dimly-lit conditions.

The h340 phones are not currently in operation in the UK yet. However, SpectraLink have other phone models and a wireless network installed in West Dorset Hospitals NHS Trust, who are slowly beginning to replace their paging system with the devices.

"In West Dorset we very simply provided them with a wireless phone that they can use. They figured out that they needed to get the phone in the hands of the nurses and doctors," said Mead.

According to the company, the networks and phone do not interfere with electrical equipment and have been tested in West Dorset for this. SpectraLink also say that they comply with all security protcols on the IEEE 802.11b standard.

As well as several installations in the US and Canada, where the NetLink h340 phones are currently in operation, SpectraLink are also active in Germany, Australia and Scandinavia.

Mead said: "Healthcare is our primary focus area right now. Our mission is really education – we are trying to inform people in terms of some of those new technology coming out."