AIRWAVE AT WORK | the NHS

Airwave is deeply honoured to work with the National Health Service, delivering TV services, digital signage and patient entertainment technology to 150+ NHS hospitals across the length and breadth of the UK.

Royal Free Hospital London

The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (RFL) is one of the UK’s largest trusts, delivering care to more than 1.6 million patients each year. Having pioneered research and treatments since 1828, Royal Free is a leader in the provision of targeted cancer therapies and new surgical procedures.

Operating alongside Barnet Hospital and Chase Farm Hospital, The Royal Free Private Patients Unit was established in the 1980’s and o ers a range of clinical services across multiple floors in London’s Hampstead area.

Wanting to meet the exacting expectations of a high profile, international private patient base (and dissatisfied with their incumbent provider) the RFL asked Airwave to propose a cutting-edge patient entertainment system.

Key desirables in this instance, included access to specific international (foreign language) channels and a BYOD platform.

“On this occasion, our project management expertise was as important a factor as the technology involved - we were required to carefully manage deployment of technology around patients, multiple floors and critical medical equipment.”

Jes

Airwave delivered a system from roof to floor incorporating a 2.4m satellite dish, IPTV headend integration, internet capability and bandwidth for WiFi services. An Otrum Mirage patient entertainment system, with commercially certified Google Chromecast, was implemented on both Samsung and Philips SMART TVs.

The system implementation included healthcare articulated wall-arms for the specific requirements of the dialysis unit.

Working with the RFL’s IT network team, Airwave ensured that clinical systems’ bandwidth requirement was not impacted by the provision of an additional broadband lease-line and internal network infrastructure to support the TV system.

The Pears Building

Royal Free Hospital’s patient entertainment system provides a 5-star, home-fromhome TV experience for patients. Consequently, it was the obvious choice to be replicated, and commissioned within Royal Free’s brand new research centre.

Located within the hospital’s grounds, the Pears Building (a collaboration between Royal Free London and Royal Free Charity and University College London), houses the UCL’s Institute of Immunity and Transplantation. Boasting world-class research facilities in a cutting-edge environment, the Pears Building also provides a hotel-like experience for patients participating in clinical trials or attending specialist clinical services.

As an expert provider of both healthcare and hospitality TV entertainment platforms, Airwave was duly delighted to deliver a top-drawer patient entertainment system into the Pears Building’s 35 bedrooms.

THE ROYAL MANCHESTER CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH) is the largest children’s hospital in the UK, treating an estimated 200,000 patients a year, across 371 paediatric beds and 60 neonatal cots.

Located within Manchester’s Oxford Road Campus of hospitals, the facility is internationally recognised as a leader in childhood cancer, child & adolescent mental health, endocrinology, inherited metabolic disease, and nephrology.

As part of the hospital’s ‘Our commitment to you’ ethos, RMCH commits to providing high quality, inclusive care, that is safe, e ective, and focussed on the patient’s needs.

With this in mind, Airwave, and partner WiFi Spark, collaborated in the provision of a BYOD (bring your own device) technology system, implemented within two recently refurbished wards.

In line with the UK’s proliferation of smart devices, and rapid growth of streaming services (such as BBC iPlayer, YouTube & Netflix), RMCH were keen to o er a vehicle for patients to use their own devices to access on-demand content.

This not only reduces the requirement for in-ward hardware, such as TV displays, TV arms and remote control holders, but o ers patients additional flexibility, and a more modern entertainment experience.

The Spark Media entertainment platform, delivers TV, radio and a portfolio of services, via a branded interface to any WiFi enabled device.

The platform o ers a multitude of features, ranging from the delivery of TV & radio services (via an IPTV network), to video calling and PAS / HL7 integration. A hospital can upgrade (or downgrade) the feature list as and when required. This not only provides operational agility and flexibility, but future-proofs the technology.

RMCH opted for a TV & radio service package, delivering 35 channels to each smart device. The service runs on the Trust’s WiFi, and also provides a branded user portal, a browser, and direct links to the Manchester Foundation Trust’s charity website.

In accordance with the hospital’s equality, diversity and inclusion commitment, Airwave provided 6 x Samsung SM-T500 tablets, pre-loaded with Spark Media and available for any patient that arrives without a smart device.

Hillingdon Hospital is an NHS hospital, situated in Pield Heath Road, Greater London.

Part of the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the hospital is an acute and specialist services provider, running a busy accident & emergency department, maternity services, and inpatient & outpatient clinics.

In conjunction with sweeping refurbishment plans, a new 2,400 sq m modular extension was built in the grounds of the hospital. The 3-storey build has created a host of additional services, and holds 70 bed spaces set across 3 wards.

Airwave was delighted to be invited, via the NHS SBS procurement framework, to design and build a Freeview TV system across the hospital’s new wards.

This required lateral thinking on Airwave’s part, due to the positioning and structure of each ward’s 4-bed bays. These had hollow walls, requiring a little bit of creativity regarding the positioning of medical wall arms – some were placed on bedheads, some were placed on adjacent walls, and all required bespoke external patressing.

As is often the case in healthcare environments, there is no one size fits all TV solution across a property, and with this in mind, Airwave recommended di erent TV models (and screen sizes) to cater for the individual requirements of each TV location:

· 4 bed bays – 19-inch Philips HFL5214 Heartline displays, arm-mounted on Glamox Luxo wall-arms.

· Single occupancy rooms – 32-inch Samsung HT5300 Series displays, wallmounted on WAP 410 arm brackets. · Day rooms / sta areas – 43-inch Samsung HT670 Series displays, mounted on B-Tech, flat-to-wall brackets.

Each screen was mounted in accordance with optimum viewing distances and angles, with a corresponding (mounted) acrylic remote-control holder, attached to a curly cord to prevent theft and loss.

Augmenting the tailored TV o ering, Airwave utilised commercial TV channelmapping functionality to create a di erent channel line-up for the children’s ward – this positioned all the relevant children’s / lifestyle channels prominently.

Installation was staggered in line with the phased opening of wards (on a floorby floor basis), in this time, Airwave was delighted to lend a helping hand, fixing another ward’s estate of non-working TVs! This required some fairly straightforward network repairs, but resulted in a hugely improved patient experience across the wards in question.