Cellular coverage in hospital cath labs

Healthcare facility gets cellular coverage in its cath labs

Summary

Challenge
A national healthcare provider needed to boost AT&T cellular service inside one of its Chattanooga, Tennessee hospitals – specifically, in the cath lab where patients with cardiac health issues undergo diagnostic testing.

Solution
CEL-FI QUATRA was used to augment the existing solution and meet the hospital’s cellular coverage needs.

Results
• Cellular coverage inside the cath labs
• Easy management of the systems
• Impressed staff

Challenge

Since a stand-alone Verizon active distributed antenna system (DAS) was already in place, RCS Wireless Technology (a 65-year-old company that offers two-way radio solutions, paging and video camera systems, mass notification systems, and cell phone signal boosters) was called in to set up a passive DAS specifically for AT&T. “With no access to the inside of the cath labs, we were limited to placing the antennas in hallways surrounding the perimeter of the cath labs,” explains Steve Klingensmith, Signal Booster Solutions Manager at RCS Wireless Technology. “Due to the limited gain capability of the passive signal boosters, this led to continued poor performance in that area.”

The Solution

To remedy the situation, Klingensmith decided to retrofit the previous installation with the newly released CEL-FI QUATRA enterprise in-building cellular solution, a scalable active DAS hybrid that combines the best of both active DAS and CEL-FI technologies. With up to 100dB gain due to its carrier-specific design, Klingensmith augmented the existing solution with CEL-FI QUATRA, enabling him to meet the hospital’s cellular coverage needs.
He showed the IT staff how to monitor the new systems using the CEL-FI WAVE Portal. They were impressed at the level of detail and transparency CEL-FI QUATRA provides. “CEL-FI WAVE will alert us to a problem, and where to go to fix that problem. With passive DAS however, there can be so many different points of failure — splitters, connectors, or cables,” he says. “Fixing one thing doesn’t necessarily solve the real problem.”
In addition to giving hospital IT staff visibility into the solution, the ability to remotely monitor and troubleshoot is also a boon to RCS Wireless Technology’s business. “Before, we would have to send someone to the site to try and diagnose the problem, taking them away from other projects,” says Klingensmith. “Now, we can quickly see if the system is working. If it’s been unplugged, we can see that and simply plug it back in. If it’s working fine, we can move on to determine other possible causes.

The Results

Reducing the number of post-installation site visits means that RCS Wireless Technology can schedule more installations, complete them more efficiently, invoice sooner and move on to the next customer quicker to focus on serving their needs. For end customers like the hospital in Chattanooga, it means that the solution is working as expected.
“CEL-FI QUATRA gives us peace of mind because we know it works, and it works well,” he says. “We can leave our customers’ sites with confidence because we know we’ve solved their problem. And that is a great feeling to have.”
  • High-quality solution for the middleprise
  • Supports multi-carrier 3G/4G/LTE voice and data
  • Carrier-approved and unconditionally network safe
  • Can be monitored and managed using CEL-FI WAVE

Contact us today to help with your Cellular Coverage Problems

This CEL-FI installation was undertaken by our partners, in which CEL-FI has a global footprint in almost 100 countries. For a referral to a local expert in your area, please contact us via phone or email.