Security or quality of services? With Extreme, a major care organization in the eastern Netherlands has both!

Aveleijn | Healthcare | The Netherlands

How nice would it be if the wireless network of a healthcare organization contributed to the quality of life of its patients while ensuring safety for the employees at more than 100 locations? Aveleijn, a major care provider from the Twente region, has solved this puzzle thanks to the Extreme Networks Wi-Fi solution delivered by Quinnect.

For more than 50 years, Aveleijn has been providing care, support, treatment and advice to children, young people, adults and seniors with developmental disabilities or low social self-reliance in the Twente region and the Berkelland municipality, as well as Achterhoek. Every day, the organization provides living and residential services, day care and outpatient care for over 2.600 of patients.

Given the scale of its environment, a secure and efficient Wi-Fi connectivity plays an instrumental role in ensuring a smooth workflow of Aveleijn’s operations. This is why the organization has chosen to modernize its wireless network with the Extreme Networks solutions.

100 locations with a distributed network

Today, Aveleijn uses access points from Extreme Networks to ensure not only an optimal wireless connectivity, but also to guarantee the safety of its employees and clients. But that wasn’t always the case. When Teun van Baaren, the company’s ICT Manager came on board in 2017, the healthcare organization had only used the capabilities of Extreme solutions to a very limited extent. Initially, the network was largely centered around connectivity for the employees. Van Baaren and his team wanted to elaborate that design by addressing four identified challenges:

• Aveleijn's 100 locations constitute a highly distributed network, while the small scale of the housing and day care units poses a significant challenge in optimizing the wireless network infrastructure.
• Videoconferences and streaming services are the 'new normal' since the COVID-19 pandemic and have been placing higher demands on the Aveleijn's wireless network infrastructure.
• Employees must be able to work safely and have access to their mobile healthcare applications at any time and any place.
• Clients, in turn, must also be allowed to live safely within Aveleijn’s premises and benefit from their own, personalized Internet and TV connection.

Network performance that translates into physical safety

First, let’s take a look at the top of the list. With its 100 locations, Aveleijn has a very distributed network, which poses a challenge for the wireless network infrastructure. In 2020, another challenge was added with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“All of a sudden, more and more clients were using streaming services video communication applications became the new normal”, Teun van Baaren recalls. “Unexpectedly, our employees needed a lot more bandwidth, which placed extra strains on our wireless network infrastructure. That alone called for a major upgrade”.

(...) Our new safety protocol required us to install more access points in other places

Network performance aside, Aveleijn also needs to keep a close watch on the safety and wellbeing of both its employees and clients. They must be able to sound the alarm in unexpected crisis situations. It also means that the personal safety system has to be able to see where an employee or a patient is at any given time, based on their location in the network.

“To make it possible, the network must be able to triangulate the signal coming from the Wi-Fi connected devices. However, if the access points are arranged neatly in a row in the hallway, it won’t cut it. That was the case with the old solution. Sure, it worked alright for the connectivity part, but our new safety protocol required us to install more access points in other places”, Teun van Baaren explains.

The natural decision was to install additional Extreme Networks access points in the patient’s rooms. Partly because of this, Aveleijn was able to immediately provide them with their own, high-quality connectivity for the Internet and TV. Quinnect has provided TV and Internet with its label Fiveth.

As a result, clients have super-fast Internet, full Wi-Fi coverage from Aveleijn and there is no interference between the Wi-Fi networks. In addition, Extreme's Wi-Fi environment offers the so-called Private Pre-Shared Keys (PPSK), so that clients have their own secure network, wherever they are within the location, and that other clients can’t access or have no insight into.

Such customization per client was previously impossible with the existing service providers. Therefore, Extreme's solutions not only make Aveleijn's care environments safer, but also improve the quality of life of its patients.

Extreme as a backbone and building management

Extreme solutions now serve as the backbone for the Aveleijn's data and services distribution. With the renewed wireless network in place in its central premises, the organization has set a new standard for the entire organization, which is gradually being introduced to all 100 locations. In that regard, Teun van Baaren and his colleagues from the IT team are following an internal technical inspection and assessment process.

“Once every five years, each real estate unit owned by our organization is thoroughly checked in terms of performance and reliability of the technical infrastructure, including the ICT network. Any equipment that is considered obsolete is then immediately replaced. It is not our policy to wait for incidents to happen and then respond – we take a proactive approach by doing everything to prevent them from happening in the first place. This way we save time while maintaining our high standards”, the ICT Manager at Aveleijn explains.

It is not our policy to wait for incidents to happen and then respond – we take a proactive approach by doing everything to prevent them from happening in the first place.

A good example of the mentioned assessment process is the last year's major upgrade project which saw the replacement of all of the end-of-life Aerohive access points with the new generation of Wi-Fi 6 model through a combination of 305C and the wall model 302W for the rooms of the clients. In addition to the Wi-Fi signal, the 302W also has extra free ports through which TV, Internet and VoIP telephony can be delivered. As an added benefit, Aveleijn does not have to invest in any additional infrastructure.

A highly suitable choice

In the near future, Aveleijn will be conducting an additional research to explore new possibilities for increasing its network security and analytics capabilities. Quinnect, the IT service provider and Extreme partner responsible for the realization of the major Wi-Fi upgrade for Aveleijn, provides the customer with support.

“More and more services are being added to the network, which requires an increasingly comprehensive system for network management and traffic monitoring”, Teun van Baaren recalls. “Additionally, Aveleijn’s environment is dynamic, building layouts change over time and with the new normal, employees want flexibility in choosing offices for the video conferences. This impacts the requirements for network coverage. However, with the Extreme technology we are able to respond quickly to the shifting connectivity needs in our locations.”

(...) With the Extreme technology we are able to respond quickly to the shifting connectivity needs in our locations.

“Extreme's Wi-Fi solutions are clearly of great value to Aveleijn. With Extreme's portfolio and our knowledge as an Extreme Diamond partner, we are delivering very high network availability, business continuity and safety for the company’s clients and employees. And network security is of course part of that”, says Herman Hassing, Sales Manager Healthcare at Quinnect. “In addition to employee safety and productivity, the new solution also provides access to customized entertainment systems for clients. This flexible and effective combination makes Extreme's technology a very suitable choice for any healthcare organization. From the technical perspective, Aveleijn's infrastructure is fully prepared for the future!”.

Extreme's Wi-Fi solutions are clearly of great value to Aveleijn (...) From the technical perspective, Aveleijn's infrastructure is fully prepared for the future!

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• Třinec Hospital (Czech Republic)
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About Quinnect

Quinnect is inspired by the Latin 'qui connectum', which stands for: 'that connects'. Connectivity is the key characteristic of our identity and core business. Quinnect provides the foundation for communication. With our network infrastructure we connect customers to all their locations and to the outside world. Quinnect connects!