Clinical user experience is the new uptime with Juniper Mist Wi-Fi

The people of Flanders, Belgium rely on Jan Yperman Hospital for patient-centered, multidisciplinary medicine and specialist care. The regional hospital has long relied on Juniper networking for its campus and data center, and based on proven innovation, migrated its hospital to Juniper wireless, driven by, Mist AI.

Clinical user experience is the new uptime

Jan Yperman is a leader in applying technology to enhance patient care, and Wi-Fi is woven into its clinical and operational workflow. Clinicians and staff rely on laptops to access their applications. Wi-Fi phones keep communication flowing. Patient health is continuously monitored. And the Wi-Fi was good. But the needle moved. Good Wi-Fi is no longer measured by uptime. It’s measured by user experience.

“Our Wi-Fi worked, but we didn’t know about the real user experience,” says Ludovic Vandaele, IT infrastructure team leader at Jan Yperman. “We had complaints about the Wi-Fi, but we had no way to find out why there was a bad experience.”

In particular, IT observed that some medical devices, including portable cardiac monitors, had difficulty staying connected. So the team began to explore how AIOps could change that experience. “We were interested in an AI engine that could give us more insights into the network experience and wanted better troubleshooting for the medical Wi-Fi devices and phones,” says Vandaele.

AIOps streamlines network operations

Wi-Fi 6 and AI-driven network operations are ideal for the hospital’s dynamic environment. Juniper Access Points work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist cloud architecture and Mist AI to optimize the network user experience while streamlining IT operations. Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance enables predictable, measurable Wi-Fi with unique visibility into service levels. Juniper Mist Wired Assurance taps into the rich telemetry of the hospital’s Juniper access switches to provide visibility into the connected device experience and streamline troubleshooting. Marvis Virtual Network Assistant simplifies everyday troubleshooting with self-driving actions.

Jan Yperman relies on Juniper QFX Series Switches and EX Series Ethernet Switches for a high-performance, flexible data center network fabric. The hospital was an early adopter of EVPN-VXLAN, which allows it to extend its Layer 2 network to clinics and other departments across the street.

Digital health tools enhance patient care

Clinicians, staff, patients, and their families can count on a great network experience whether they are in the hospital or walking across campus. Medical devices stay connected. “Juniper Mist transformed the network operations experience too. Looking at the service levels gave us a good view and understanding of the user experience, and the AI-assisted troubleshooting was able to show us proactively if service levels weren’t optimal. In detail, we were able to get to the affected item and find a root cause,” says Vandaele.

The hospital uses a separate real-time location service system to track the location of wheelchairs, infusion pumps, and other high-value assets. Patients most likely to wander are monitored for safety. A strong draw of the Juniper Mist solution was virtual Bluetooth and User Engagement.

“Juniper Mist gives us ideas to work with in the future.”