Rady Children’s Hospital upgrades Wi-Fi to support world-class pediatric care

Rady Children's, the teaching hospital associated with the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, wanted a faster, more reliable wireless network as it cared for kids and supported their families. Using outdated Wi-Fi meant that when physicians and nurses visited their patients or called colleagues, they couldn’t count on a reliable connection as they walked through hospital corridors or stairwells. Dropped calls and slow clinical applications created frustration.

“We wanted to respond to change faster and provide a great connectivity experience, even for the newest mobile devices that providers used,” says Michael Worley, network technician at Rady Children’s Hospital.

Rady Children's sought out a smarter wireless network solution, one that would automatically fine-tune the Wi-Fi experience to support stable connections, even as people moved around the hospital’s buildings. The IT team wanted a cloud-managed network with AI capabilities that would provide proactive insights into the user experience and simplify management.

Making a network change in a life-critical environment must be done with precision and care. The IT team was still leery from upgrading its controller-based wireless LAN a few years ago, an effort that took months to complete and was disruptive to clinicians and hospital operations. This time around, IT wanted to make the change with no downtime at all.

Before Juniper, when clinicians complained about Wi-Fi service, IT could spend hours isolating and resolving the issue.

No longer. Now, the IT team can use the Juniper Mist dashboard to visualize and monitor the quality of an individual user’s experience and fix problems swiftly.

Daniel Madain, network engineer team lead, describes the mindset change.

“The Juniper dashboard presents us with a narrative about the wireless,” he says. “Instead of seasoned engineers trying to interpret a collection of loosely related metrics to understand how the network is really performing, we now have a direct line of sight into a problem, from point A to point B.”

The AI-driven smarts of a Juniper network have proven useful in other ways. For instance, the IT team found a vintage iPad in use during the proof-of-concept test and replaced it. Marvis pinpointed authentication issues causing occasional trouble with the guest Wi-Fi.

IT even used Marvis and the Juniper wireless network to help a charge nurse quickly find missing workstations on wheels (WOWs) needed for patient visits. “I queried Marvis to locate 28 out of the 30 missing WOW carts on the floor-plan map within 10 feet of the actual physical location,” says Worley.

That kind of quick response turns IT teammates into heroes and helps Rady Children’s provide comprehensive care and treatment for more kids.

This video describes how Rady Children's Hospital wanted a faster, more reliable wireless network as it cared for kids and supported their families. Using outdated Wi-Fi meant that when physicians and nurses visited their patients or called colleagues, they couldn’t count on a reliable connection as they walked through hospital corridors or stairwells.

Rady Children's Hospital sought out a smarter wireless network solution, one that would automatically fine-tune the Wi-Fi experience to support stable connections, even as people moved around the hospital’s buildings. The IT team wanted a cloud-managed network with AI capabilities that would provide proactive insights into the user experience and simplify management.