VA seeks vendors for wireless networks

The Veterans Affairs Department on Monday asked industry for ideas about how to provide wireless Internet access to patients and visitors at its 153 medical centers. The request for information is an effort to find qualified vendors that can offer the service.

VA emphasized the wireless network must operate independently from other wireless networks installed in the hospitals to support clinicians. The department has installed WiFi networks in all its hospitals to support, among other things, a system called bar code medication administration to ensure that patients receive the right prescription in the correct dosage at the appropriate time.

Scripps Health, which operates six hospitals in the San Diego area, was the first health care organization to offer wireless Internet access to patients in 2003. Since then, the number of hospitals that provide patient WiFi access has grown to 740 worldwide, according to Kristin Mitchell, a spokeswoman for JiWire, a San Francisco-based company that maintains a global database of WiFi hot spots.

Mitchell said 348 hospitals in the United States provide patients with wireless Internet access. Hospitals in Washington that offer the service include >Georgetown University Hospital, The George Washington University Hospital and the Washington Medical Center.

The Military Health System currently does not have a plan to offer WiFi patient access in the 59 hospitals the Army, Navy and Air Force operate, but the Navy has installed wireless systems in hospitals in >Bethesda, Md., Portsmouth, Va., and Yokosuka, Japan.

The Navy Exchange Service Command installed the patient WiFi systems at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and the Portsmouth Naval Hospital using a network isolated from military networks and paid for with Morale, Welfare and Recreation funds.

Gary Mann, a telecommunications program analyst with the command, said the service helps bedridden patients feel less isolated by providing them with a window to the world.

While WiFi might be the logical choice for VA's patient wireless service, Roger Baker, the department's chief information officer, said in an interview last June that he would consider using broadband cellular wireless as an alternative to WiFi.

Responses to VA's guest wireless service solicitation are due Nov. 30.