More hospitals than ever are prioritizing their internal communications systems. Some wireless technology companies are responding with VoIP solutions. Take Ascom, for example. The company’s teleCARE IP solution has been tested in hospitals the world over, but now it’s adding VoIP capability. Read »

What a difference a year can make. For Ottawa Regional Hospital and Health Center in Illinois, it's meant transitioning from an analog phone system fed by T-1s and a separate 10/100 Ethernet data network to a 10Gbps fiber ring that connects the health center's 31-acre campus. It's also meant the addition of VoIP phones that include the capacity to turn on unified communications (UC) features. Although the conversion wasn't cheap, it should go a long way towards lowering costs and freeing-up full-time IT staff to focus on implementing EMR systems. Read »

It wasn’t that long ago that the convergence of VoIP and WLAN tech meant dealing with proprietary equipment, weak security, and a lack of scalable network management tools. But, as an article in Enterprise Networking Planet points out, the VoWLAN landscape is changing rapidly with evolving standards, new equipment, and the arrival of some decent management tools. As key market verticals, including healthcare, contend with the rapid adoption of laptop computers, Wi-Fi-enabled mobile handsets and other devices, it’s easy to see why unified communications and videoconferencing specialist Polycom recently declared: VoIP is the future. Read »

In the beginning, there was information. Then came the need for information access and management, which eventually morphed into Unified Communications, or being able to combine all forms of communication and collaboration within a single user account. And it was good, satisfying the needs of many desktop users while paving the way for new offerings, such as hosted UC or SaaS. But while small to mid-size businesses may be content with UC on the desktop, healthcare and other enterprise organizations requiring true mobility are pinning their expectations on the next logical step: extending UC to mobile devices. Read »

In my last column, I referenced the recent string of vendor partnership efforts aimed at streamlining existing technologies to deliver real-world functionalities to the healthcare industry. These partnerships, while meriting attention in their own right, arrived in tandem with a series of new product developments and upgrades that also warrant consideration. Read »