Even with the architecture improvements, therapists notice slowdowns and screen delays with the ChartSource Therapy application during peak periods at the clinics. Concentra's IT team is working with outside contractors to help determine the cause, Wilson says, which he believes is a load problem with the server or wired network, not the wireless connection. Enterasys RoamAbout wireless access devices run in the clinics.
Wilson and his IT group, meanwhile, are already testing the next phase of the wireless project, incorporating the patient checkout process. Physicians and physical therapists will use the application to record their recommendations for a patient's treatment after a workplace injury, along with a recommendation for when he or she should return to work. Today, those recommendations are recorded on paper, and an administrative assistant enters the therapist's notes into Concentra's homegrown practice management system, which shares a database with the wireless applications. "They will be able to document when the next appointment date should be and what procedures should be performed," Wilson says. Billing will be automatically generated, too.
All of Concentra's applications, including the wireless ones, are integrated using the company's Sybase database.
Concentra, like other health care organizations, is under pressure to keep patient data confidential to comply with the federal government's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Security hasn't been compromised on Concentra's wireless network so far, but Wilson says he anxiously awaits Enterasys' newest encryption technology, which works around the WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)'s weakest link: its vulnerable session key.
"One of the weaknesses in Web encryption is that the session key is broadcast out, and someone could capture and decrypt it," he says. Enterasys' new encryption feature, called rapid rekeying, automatically changes the key every 10 minutes, so a stolen key expires before significant damage can be done. Enterasys uses 128-bit encryption.
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