Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN), a global leader in 802.11n wireless LANs and secure mobility solutions, today announced that the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (UHSM) in the United Kingdom is using Aruba’s Virtual Branch Networking (VBN) solution to increase the quality of antenatal services delivered to the local community. UHSM has equipped its community midwives with VBN-based Remote Access Points (RAPs) to provide easy-to-use yet highly secure remote access to maternity records during community visits. Access to the records helps midwives assess the status and health of expectant mothers, improving the delivery process and post-delivery care of both mother and baby.
“Sound healthcare should originate in the places where we work and live, and UHSM has a highly successful formula for delivering community health services by leveraging its considerable IT infrastructure”
UHSM is a major acute teaching hospital trust with services provided at both the Withington and Wythenshawe Community Hospitals, with the latter providing special antenatal services at a dedicated on-site clinic. The challenge faced by UHSM was how to provide midwives with up-to-date hospital records when they met with expectant mothers off site, such as at regional Sure Start Children’s Centres or charity-owned offices throughout the South Manchester area. Access to patient records is tightly regulated in the UK and many other countries, and strict adherence to privacy and security regulations is compulsory.
Aruba’s VBN technology overcomes this challenge by securely extending UHSM’s patient record network off site. Midwives are provided with inexpensive RAPs which provide secure, authenticated remote access to UHSM’s data center. Controllers in the data center handle all VBN-related configuration, management, and security tasks. Centralizing these services in the controllers simplifies the design and installation of the RAPs. And by enabling midwives to work remotely with the same secure access to the healthcare network as they would have in the hospital, VBN allows them to remotely access patient records while adhering to government privacy and security regulations.