High Point Regional Health System Offers Free Wireless Internet

12/9/2008

Visitors waiting for family members in surgery can update friends. Patients resting in their rooms can still conduct personal business by sending and responding to e-mails. And on-site vendors can communicate with their offices. High Point Regional Health System has gone wireless.

Patients, visitors and even vendors at High Point Regional can now access the Internet using their wireless-equipped laptops and other wireless devices to send e-mail, chat with friends and surf the Internet for free.

“Patient satisfaction is imperative in the health care industry,” said Diana Sharkey, chief information officer. “We believe that offering technology such as free wireless Internet can be a factor as we strive to provide exceptional health services to the people of our region.”

The wireless service is available throughout the hospital’s main campus. This includes a number of key areas including: patient rooms, family waiting areas, lobbies, cafeteria and soda shop. Connecting is easy. In fact, it only takes five simple steps from any wireless enabled laptop computer and guest users are connected to the World Wide Web.

There are a number of security measures in place and the public wireless network is filtered for inappropriate content. Also, the wireless network does not allow access to the hospital's separate and secure business network. As a result, confidential patient information is fully protected and is not accessible to guest users who are on the wireless network.

High Point Regional does provide technical support for connection problems, should a patient, visitor or vendor experience difficulty while using the wireless system they can call the IT Service Desk at Ext. 6050. Support services are limited to connection problems only.