Hospitals are a place where communication and connectivity have never been so important. Hospitals can be extremely busy environments and for this reason the staff, patients and visitors all rely on being able to communicate in a smooth and seamless fashion. Whether your healthcare facility is a large scale hospital or a small residential care home, Sure Signal has the solution for all your signal and connectivity needs having performed installations of hospital signal boosters for many NHS clients including Great Ormond Street children’s hospital and the Royal Chelsea pensioners care home.
With a wealth of experience working in healthcare environments with minimal disruption to day to day activities of the hospital or premises in question. In this article we will discuss the best ways to improve phone signal in a hospital and how a Sure Signal solution can help.
Firstly, we must ask, Why is there no signal inside most healthcare facilities and hospitals? Hospitals can experience a number of mobile signal issues and connectivity issues. The main reasons why healthcare facilities can experience these problems are: Building Materials and the location of the Hospital.
When hospitals and healthcare facilities are being built, the construction phase must take a number of building factors into consideration, including layout, cable routes, connectivity routes, ward designs, heating and the overall efficiency of the building. This can lead to a number of issues as the materials needed to provide these factors can be detrimental to the phone signal available from penetrating the walls and rooms of the hospital or healthcare facility. Some building materials which are commonly seen in hospital construction and which are known to cause harm to phone signal are steel and other metals, concrete and other masonry materials like brick, thick walls, emission reducing tinted windows and even insulation can all play their role in creating a disruptive environment for phone signal. The presence of large amounts of metals in both the construction and healthcare equipment is the single biggest factor in this.
The next issue is location, some of these hospitals and facilities are built in areas where phone signal isn’t optimal. This can be down to it serving a rural population with fewer network base stations nearby or it could be down to surrounding infrastructure interfering with the hospitals signal and blocking it from getting through in more built up urban areas. As hospitals and most healthcare facilities can vary in their location, this is all dependent on the situation and something which our surveyor always takes into consideration. The landscape in rural areas can also influence phone signal with trees, mountains and dips in the landscape causing problems also.
Sure Signal sent their surveyor to assess the situation and learned that the system was outdated, non compliant with OFCOM regulations and no longer achieving power. We upgraded this to a totally license exempt, compliant solution which restored and improved the phone signal in the wards and required areas of the hospital. The CEO presented us with a different task and we installed a hybrid DAS for this bespoke solution to increase the signal in this office.
Does my facility need a signal booster? Should we improve In-Building mobile signal?
Like was mentioned above, never before has it been more important to have a strong phone signal with the reliance upon this technology higher than ever. Communication in the fast space environment of hospitals is imperative and important; it can be achieved easily. Ensuring lower levels of accidents and problems arising. By improving the phone signal in these buildings key areas communication between healthcare staff improves, patient safety improves and patient communication with their family improves too.
Sure Signal Ltd solutions work predominantly by the use of distributed antenna systems to increase phone signal in hospitals and provide in-building solutions to all kinds of healthcare facilities. A Distributed antenna system works by picking up the best available signal in the area and bringing it into the building before distributing it throughout. The external antenna is placed in the position where the signal is strongest and for easy access to the building’s cabling infrastructure. Once the sufficient signal is received by the external antenna, this signal is then carried by coaxial cable to the license exempt mobile signal booster which in turn is then connected to the internal antennas by coaxial cable. The internal antennas are similar in size or smaller than a smoke alarm, and they are the part of the distributed antenna system which distributes the signal throughout the building. Providing mobile signal and network coverage to all users in the areas boosted.
When it comes to mobile phone signal boosters and their use in hospitals and healthcare facilities, it is imperative to know the legislation around their use and to ensure that the equipment you are using is OFCOM compliant and license exempt. There are websites which sell the illegal to use signal boosters as it is not an offence to sell but an offence to use leaving the issue with the consumer who puts these illegal units to use. At Sure Signal we are resellers in the UK for legal, Cel Fi brand mobile signal boosters which have been approved by OFCOM and which are the only legal to use signal boosters in the UK market at present.
Having performed many successful installations for healthcare facilities, from GP offices to the largest hospitals right across the UK, Sure Signal Ltd is the most experienced, highest quality and most affordable signal booster solutions to all hospital and healthcare settings. Get in touch with our expert staff today and arrange for our surveyor to assess your situation and provide you with a solution to your connectivity and network problems.
