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Why Healthcare Wi-Fi Fails When the Bars Are Full · Connectivity Without Chaos - The Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Connectivity Without Chaos podcast.
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  Today we discuss the unique wireless network challenges faced
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  in healthcare.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's a huge topic right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
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  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a code blue is called, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: The crash cart arrives,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the critical medical tablet just refuses to pull the patient's chart.
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  SPEAKER_01: Which is terrifying.
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  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the unseen culprit.
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  Someone in the break room,
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  you know,
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  just turned on a microwave to heat up their lunch.
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: Happens way more than you'd think.
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  So we are doing a deep dive today into expert WLAN design
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  guides and industry analyses.
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  SPEAKER_00: We really want to show you,
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  SPEAKER_00: the healthcare CIOs out there,
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  SPEAKER_00: why hospital Wi-Fi isn't just like an IT issue anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a critical life safety system.
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  SPEAKER_01: It absolutely is.
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  And a standard office predictive Wi-Fi model,
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  it completely shatters in a clinical environment.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are dealing with
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  SPEAKER_01: literal architectural labyrinths.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right, because of the specialized rooms.
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: You've got radiologists working behind lead shielded walls.
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  SPEAKER_01: Those act as literal signal cages.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a single cage.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then factor in,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  1920s brick causing massive floor to floor signal bleed or
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  underground steam
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  tunnels packed with dense metal pipes where security teams
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  still require rock solid
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  SPEAKER_01: connectivity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  SPEAKER_00: knowing how hostile that environment is,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's kind of obvious why IT teams fall into the,
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  SPEAKER_00: what do they call it,
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  SPEAKER_00: the hull-fi trap.
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  SPEAKER_01: The hull-fi trap.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so common.
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  Because running cables straight down a drop-ceiling hallway is
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  incredibly fast to
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  SPEAKER_00: deploy and easy to maintain.
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's super easy.
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  SPEAKER_01: But that convenience comes at a massive cost.
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  SPEAKER_01: It basically halves your network capacity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wait, halves it?
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  SPEAKER_00: Just by putting them in the hall.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because Wi-Fi is a half-duplex medium.
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  SPEAKER_01: Devices can't send and receive data at the same time.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's like a walkie-talkie.
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  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I follow you.
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  So if you line all your access points,
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  your APs,
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  down a hallway,
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  they hear each other perfectly.
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  SPEAKER_01: They end up sharing a contention domain,
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  which just means they have to politely wait their turn to speak
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  over the airwaves.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: If one AP transmits, the others pause.
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  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: hearing you describe that,
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  it sounds exactly like setting up a massive PA system entirely
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  in the hallway
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  SPEAKER_00: instead of putting the speakers inside the actual conference rooms.
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  SPEAKER_01: That is a perfect way to put it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like you plug it in easily,
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  but the doctors and nurses inside the patient rooms just get
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  blasted with this
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  SPEAKER_00: paralyzing,
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  SPEAKER_00: overlapping wall of noise.
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: The signals simply drown each other out.
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  The APs really need to be inside the rooms where the devices
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  are actually consuming the data.
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  SPEAKER_00: But,
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  SPEAKER_00: okay,
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  even if a team does perfectly mack the 3D grid and they avoid
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  the whole Halify
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  SPEAKER_00: thing,
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  SPEAKER_00: they still inevitably face that ultimate clinician complaint,
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  SPEAKER_00: right?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have full bars, but nothing loads.
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the classic IT blind spot.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  Your infrastructure dashboard might show this beautiful sea of
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  green lights.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everything looks fine to IT.
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  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: But those lights only tell you the equipment is radiating a signal,
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  SPEAKER_01: not that a medical cart can actually pull EHR data from Epic or Cerner.
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  SPEAKER_00: So what's actually happening there?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, you get these things called ghost APs.
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  SPEAKER_01: They project a strong radio frequency,
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  SPEAKER_01: so the client device shows full bars,
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  SPEAKER_01: but they fail to forward any actual data traffic.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
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  SPEAKER_00: Why?
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  SPEAKER_01: It's often due to a VLAN mismatch.
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  The wireless network just isn't properly mapped to the correct
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  underlying wired network.
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  SPEAKER_00: So wait, let me push back on this.
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  Are you saying the standard Wi-Fi bars icon on a medical device
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  is essentially a
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  SPEAKER_00: lie in these dense clinical environments?
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean...
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes, fundamentally.
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  If a nurse sees full bars,
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  they are looking at signal strength,
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  not service availability.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is wild.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is.
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  And to fix that blind spot,
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  networks are shifting toward digital experience or DEX sensors.
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  SPEAKER_01: Think of a DEX sensor as like a secret shopper for your infrastructure.
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  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Instead of just passively sitting on the ceiling waiting for connections,
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  SPEAKER_01: it proactively acts like a client.
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  SPEAKER_01: It authenticates, it connects, and it runs synthetic tests continuously.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just to validate the actual end user experience.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  Like acting as a nurse's tablet to prove the system can reach
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  the data center.
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's active validation.
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  SPEAKER_00: But solving network drops is one thing.
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  What happens when the most dangerous disruptors aren't even
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  part of your IT network at all?
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  SPEAKER_00: Like we mentioned earlier,
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  SPEAKER_00: a break room microwave just completely flooding the 2.4 gigahertz band.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the Wild West of Wi-Fi.
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  Hospitals operate in unlicensed spectrum,
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  meaning they are flooded with non-Wi-Fi interference.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  And to complicate things further,
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  you have to balance all that noise with LCMI devices.
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  SPEAKER_00: LCMI.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which stands for?
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  SPEAKER_00: Least capable.
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  SPEAKER_01: Most important.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ah, okay.
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  Think of like a multi-million dollar legacy x-ray machine
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  running on severely
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  SPEAKER_01: outdated wireless standards.
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  It somehow has to seamlessly coexist on the exact same airwaves
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  as modern iPads
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  SPEAKER_01: doing high-speed transfers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds like a nightmare.
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  So if a clinician's connection drops at 3.00 AM because of a
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  microwave or some
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  SPEAKER_00: random interference spike,
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  SPEAKER_00: IT isn't just standing there with a sniffer to catch it in real time.
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  SPEAKER_01: No, definitely not.
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  SPEAKER_00: So how do they investigate an invisible problem weeks after it happened?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, they use historical packet captures.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's essentially a time machine for the network.
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  SPEAKER_00: A time machine.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: By continuously recording and storing the raw network data traffic,
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  SPEAKER_01: engineers can query the system retroactively.
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  So they can actually rewind to that specific 3.0 a.m.
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  window weeks later?
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: They isolate the specific data packets from that area,
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  and they can see exactly what disrupted the connection right
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  when it happened.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is fascinating.
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  SPEAKER_00: It really leaves you with something to ponder, you know.
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  SPEAKER_00: As you,
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  SPEAKER_00: our listeners,
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  SPEAKER_00: move toward mobile-first clinical applications,
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  SPEAKER_00: is your unseen wireless infrastructure a true foundation for healing,
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  SPEAKER_00: or is it a hidden bottleneck just waiting to fail during a code blue?
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  That really is the question every healthcare CIO needs to be
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  asking themselves today.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Connectivity Without Chaos podcast.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this podcast, please like and subscribe.
• 6:03
  For more insights,
• 6:04
  see our Substack blogs under Connectivity Without Chaos.