Patent ID: 7156807

Claim:
A system for supporting both realtime and non-realtime wireless access to a hardwired computer network with a medical facility, comprising: a plurality of access points connected to the hardwired network to provide wireless access to the hardwired network, the access points distributed throughout regions of the medical facility, wherein at least some of the access points implement a realtime wireless local area network (WLAN) protocol to transfer time-critical data from wireless devices to the hardwired network with a known maximum latency, and wherein at least some of the access points implement a non-realtime WLAN protocol to provide general purpose wireless access to the hardwired network, wherein at least some of the access points implement both the realtime WLAN protocol and the non-realtime WLAN protocol; and a plurality of wireless patient transceivers which implement the realtime WLAN protocol to transfer realtime patient data to the hardwired network via the access points which implement the realtime WLAN protocol.