Offer greater mobility in hospitals with integrated wireless IP infrastructure

Siemens and Dräger Medical extend partnership

Two factors that are essential for prompt and efficient patient care in hospitals today are availability of reliable patient information and mobility of medical staff. Siemens Communications (Com) will support Dräger Medical in offering greater mobility in hospitals. This solution makes vital patient monitoring data available hospital-wide using the existing hospital network. Dräger Medical and Siemens Com will use the latest Wi-Fi WLAN technology, allowing for increased patient mobility while at the same time ensuring network stability. The result will be a wireless hospital infrastructure through which doctors and nursing staff have access to both clinical applications and real time patient monitoring data at any time, enterprise-wide.

Siemens Com is a certified solutions partner for Infinity® OneNet, providing expertise in wireless network planning and customer service to hospitals that implement this new technology. Dräger Medical will provide its in-depth clinical experience in patient monitoring and clinical applications for the acute point of care.

The cooperation will enable hospitals to develop integrated solutions. For example, using Infinity Gateway technology, alarms triggered by a patient monitor could be automatically routed through the hospital network using the intelligence built into the nurse call system – delivering the message directly to the most appropriate caregiver who can provide the quickest response to the emergency.

When combined with other wireless technology such as wireless Voice over IP (WVoIP), Infinity OneNet can help hospitals make day-to-day work more efficient. For example, hospitals can use the solution to directly connect caregivers to patients and to each other. As a result, time-consuming trips to other wards in order to check medical records or patient requests become a thing of the past. Hospital staff can now access relevant patient information from wherever they happen to be on duty.

With WLAN technology from Siemens Communications, doctors and nurses are no longer restricted to a single ward PC or telephone for tasks such as calling up patient data. Instead, hospital personnel can now communicate by wireless connections anywhere on hospital grounds using a WLAN IP telephone, PDA, or notebook with talk/listen functionality.

Dräger Medical introduced Infinity OneNet in 2004. Since then, it has proven to be a reliable system for enhancing patient care and mobility, while enabling significant cost saving benefits to the hospital.

Siemens Communications is one of the largest players in the global telecommunications industry. Siemens is the only provider in the market that offers its customers a full-range portfolio, from devices for end users to complex network infrastructures for enterprises and carriers as well as related services. Siemens Communications is the world’s innovation leader in convergent technologies, products and services for wireless, fixed and enterprise networks. It is the largest Group within Siemens and operates in more than 160 countries around the world. In fiscal 2004 (year-end September 30), its 60,000-strong workforce posted sales of approximately 18 billion euros.

Dräger Medical is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of medical equipment. As the largest division of Drägerwerk AG (history dates back to 1889), Dräger Medical AG & Co. KG is a 65:35 joint venture company between Drägerwerk AG and Siemens AG. The Company offers products, services and integrated CareArea™ Solutions throughout the patient care process – Emergency Care, Perioperative Care, Critical Care, Perinatal Care and Home Care. With headquarters in Lübeck, Germany, Dräger Medical employs nearly 6,000 people worldwide, around half of whom work in customer sales & services. R&D and production are located in Lübeck, Germany; Best, Netherlands; Telford, PA, and Danvers, MA, USA; and Shanghai, China. The Company has sales and service subsidiaries in almost 50 countries and is represented in more than 190 countries. In fiscal year (= calendar year) 2004, the Company increased its net sales by around 11.2 percent to reach € 1,023.4 million and posted an operative EBIT of € 94.2 million. Dräger Medical has outpaced the market with a long-term average growth rate of around 8 percent per year. The Company increased its EBIT from € 9.1 million in 2000 to € 94.2 million in 2004, marking the first four years of its business turn-around. Dräger Medical provides innovative solutions for the acute point of care which are the result of a clear focus on core competencies, a close dialog with customers, over a century of experience in the market, and continuous investment in R&D. The Company’s goal is to help improve the quality of patient care while supporting care process efficiency in order to assist in healthcare cost savings.