Melbourne, Australia – 22 June 2021 - Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless edge solutions, has announced today that Aspen Medical, a global healthcare provider and a key player in Australia’s response to COVID-19, has rolled out Cradlepoint NetCloud and over 220 wireless routers to enable connectivity across Federal Government-funded GP-led respiratory (COVID-19 testing) clinics and for their vaccination teams in aged care facilities. Earlier this year, Aspen Medical managed COVID-19 testing facilities and hotel quarantine at the Australian Open in Melbourne and leveraged Cradlepoint to deliver on-site connectivity for medical staff.
Canberra-based Aspen Medical specialises in providing healthcare services, including modular and temporary clinical infrastructure, in environments that are remote, challenging and under-resourced, and where fixed connectivity can be a challenge. In 2014, the company led Australia’s response in West Africa during the Ebola Outbreak and, in 2017, managed four field trauma and maternity hospitals near Mosul in Iraq on behalf on the WHO and UN. During the global pandemic, Aspen Medical teams are operating in multiple environments, sometimes with teams of 20-30 persons per site requiring connectivity at the same time. The organisation realised that Wi-Fi devices could not cope with that number of users and that it needed a robust solution connecting multiple devices and users reliably.
Since many respiratory clinics are in regional, rural or remote areas, Aspen Medical chose Cradlepoint for mobility solutions that deliver the security and robustness of a fixed connection for sensitive patient data, telephony, and printing services.
“Our objective is to deliver clinical services. When our Vaccination Administration teams arrive at a site, they unpack their kit — printers, tablets, laptops, mobile phones. In minutes, everything connects to a NetCloud-configured Cradlepoint router, and can upload patient data to our medical system easily, reliably and securely,” says Sanja Marais, General Manager, Technology and Innovation, Aspen Medical.
“This ability to instantly, securely and reliably connect remote clinics means that we can ensure that all Australians that get vaccinated have their records sent to the Australian Immunisation Register, even in rural areas. Cradlepoint Connectivity has been critical for enabling our teams to focus on patient care,” she adds.
Aspen Medical Vaccination Administration teams have already mobilised to aged care facilities across the country to provide vaccinations for elderly patients. Care teams are equipped with a complete IT kit that includes Cradlepoint routers, as strict security regulations in Australia regarding clinical information and medical data means they can’t rely on third-party Wi-Fi at these facilities.
Earlier this year, Aspen Medical managed hotel quarantine including COVID-19 testing for staff, players and their entourage at the Australian Open in Melbourne. The medical team set up testing hubs where tennis players and staff were based, and deployed Cradlepoint routers to securely connect computers and printers, without relying on hotel or open Wi-Fi.
“Like most organisations, our IT team is stretched, making it difficult to have IT staff on the ground at every location where our clinicians are working. The ability to manage and control the environments of our various facilities, both remotely and in-house, through NetCloud Manager from Head Office, has saved us time and labour costs,” adds Sanja.
“What started as a small project has progressed into a significant rollout that is helping the Aspen Medical team to provide the highest quality of medical care to Australians during the COVID pandemic. We’re incredibly proud to be working with a world-leading health organisation to help enable them to provide medical care in extraordinarily challenging circumstances, seamlessly and efficiently,” said Gavin Wilson, Managing Director APAC, Cradlepoint.
Aspen Medical plans to use Cradlepoint wireless network solutions in field hospitals in very remote areas of the world to train staff and set up secure networks at these facilities connecting technologies such as medical devices and augmented reality technology.
Cradlepoint is a global leader in cloud-delivered 4G and 5G wireless network edge solutions. Cradlepoint’s NetCloud™ platform and cellular routers deliver a pervasive, secure, and software-defined Wireless WAN edge to connect people, places, and things – anywhere. More than 25,000 businesses and government agencies around the world, including many Global 2000 organizations and top public sector agencies, rely on Cradlepoint to keep mission-critical sites, points of commerce, field forces, vehicles, and IoT devices always connected. Cradlepoint was founded in 2006, acquired by Ericsson in 2020, and operates today as a standalone subsidiary within Ericsson’s Business Area Technologies and New Businesses. Cradlepoint is headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with development centers in Silicon Valley and India and international offices in the UK and Australia. www.cradlepoint.com
Founded in 2003, Aspen Medical is an Australian-owned, multi award-winning, global provider of innovative healthcare solutions across a diverse range of clients in government, global agencies, non-government organisations and the private sector. The company is a world leader in the delivery of healthcare solutions in any setting, particularly those that are remote, challenging, or under-resourced. Aspen Medical offers its clients a tailored and flexible service wherever it is needed - from a single paramedic to a full-spectrum solution involving a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, ambulances, medical facilities, equipment, consumables, pharmacy products, procedures, mobile health and surgical solutions, primary healthcare clinics and aero-medical evacuation services including the company’s own aviation assets. Aspen Medical is the current Australian Exporter of the Year and a certified B Corporation that believes in using business as a force for good.
Aspen Medical is the only commercial organisation in the world certified by the World Health Organisation as an Emergency Medical Team for infectious disease outbreaks. The company has played a significant role in containing the spread of coronavirus in Australia and overseas in the US, Canada, the UAE and across the Pacific.
