🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 19 May 2008 02:20:26 -0400, T <nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net>
wrote:

>I just interviewed for a position as a network engineer for a hospital 
>group. They were telling me about the regulations regarding 802.11 gear, 
>it's enough to make your head spin. 

In about 1993, before HIPAA, I was working with a large medical office
management group.  The problem was that office space on the hospital
campus was expensive, so they moved across the freeway to a cheaper
location.  The problem was that the cost of a T1 was rather.  We were
looking into wireless.  All that was available in 1993 was Wavelan
802.11 at 2Mbits/sec (half that in thruput) and some 900MHz stuff from
OCT.  Good enough to replace a T1.  I submitted my proposal to the
hospital bureaucracy which was immediately rejected by the safety
committee.  Safety?  Yep.  They didn't want their patients
"irradiated" by all that evil wireless.  I eventually threw together
an IR system, that actually worked, but only to about 100Kbits/sec. It
also had the irritating habit of losing focus twice a day as the
thermal inversion layer hit the beam over the freeway.

A few years later, Wi-Fi became the high fashion buzzword, where
everything from heart monitors to crash carts were being deployed in
the hospital.  They even have a Cingular cell site on the roof of the
the cardiology unit:
<http://802.11junk.com/cellular/rich/DominicanHospital/>

So, in 2003, someone figured it was safe to resurrect the idea of the
wireless link across the freeway.  They submitted roughly the same
plans, and were again rejected on the grounds of RF safety.  In
addition, HIPAA requirements had just become manditor, and nobody had
a clue whether wireless was acceptable.  That decision was in the
hands of the attorneys, who supplied the tranditional judgement, that
wireless was a potential problem and should be avoided.  Never mind
that in 2003 there were already a dozen wireless access points
scattered around the hospital (not counting those installed by the
doctors for their own use).  

Incidentally, I proposed and tested delivering Wi-Fi to the hospital
rooms via the HVAC ducting used as waveguide, which sorta worked, but
was also deemed a potential can of worms.

>The certification process is in a word, ridiculous. 

The local hospital is owned by Catholic Healthcare West.  I have to
restrain myself not to call the process the "blessing" of the
hardware.  Also, I've had to survive an insurance company audit of the
medical offices equipment and procedures, which makes HIPAA wireless
certification look trivial by comparison.  (I haven't done any of that
since 1996, which explains why I'm still sane).

Actually, it's apparently becoming somewhat easier these days.  Some
wi-fi vendors are including regulatory and certification compliance
reports in their security packages.  For example:
<http://www.xirrus.com/products/security.php>
<http://www.airmagnet.com/products/ea_cisco/>

-- 
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558