Case Study: Boston Medical Center achieves reliable, secure hospital-wide Wi-Fi with HPE Aruba Networking

Boston Medical Center Deploys Aruba networks to Improve Reliability of Hospital Wireless LAN

Boston Medical Center, a 626‑bed not‑for‑profit academic medical center and primary teaching affiliate of Boston University School of Medicine, faced a failing legacy wireless LAN that caused dropped connections, poor roaming, difficult device integration and high operational overhead. These issues threatened critical clinical systems (EMR, CPOE, ED, OR), wireless voice (Vocera), mobile workstations and guest access, prompting a three‑month pilot to find a more reliable solution.

BMC selected Aruba and deployed 600 AP‑125 802.11n access points with centralized mobility controllers, a policy enforcement firewall and wireless intrusion protection, leveraging Aruba’s Adaptive Radio Management and identity‑based policies. The new WLAN delivered hospital‑wide coverage, improved reliability and roaming, QoS for Vocera, HIPAA‑compliant guest segmentation, fewer help‑desk calls and new capabilities like location tracking, freeing IT to focus on strategic initiatives.

Boston Medical Center

Brad Blake

Director of Information