KUM transforms network to enable smart healthcare

Seoul, South Korea, July 29, 2025 – Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, a leading provider of secure networking and communication solutions enabling organizations and industries to accelerate their operational efficiencies and competitiveness, has successfully completed a major wireless network transformation for Korea University Medicine (KUM), one of South Korea's most prestigious medical institutions. The comprehensive project deployed mission-critical wireless infrastructure across three hospital campuses in Ansan, Guro and Anam, to enable next-generation digital healthcare services, while laying the foundation for smart hospital innovation.

Founded in 1928, KUM operates three major hospital branches, providing essential healthcare services to communities across the Seoul metropolitan area. The institution faced significant challenges with its aging wireless infrastructure, including dead zones that impacted work efficiency, insufficient wireless speeds for newly adopted medical equipment and network overload from the increasing number of IoT and wireless medical devices essential to effective healthcare delivery. The legacy network was clearly unable to meet the growing demands of modern healthcare technology.

The ALE solution, deployed in partnership with BIN Solutions, introduced a resilient, high-performance LAN and WLAN backbone, built on 12 Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch® 6900 V48 switches and 172 OmniSwitch 6560 P-48Z16 multi-gigabit PoE switches, supporting over 4,000 Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess® Stellar AP1320 access points centrally managed by  the on-premises OmniVista® unified management system with full redundancy. This distributed, controller-less architecture eliminates the traditional limitations of controller-based wireless systems while providing the scalability and reliability required for healthcare environments, delivering approximately 20% improvement in operational productivity. ALE's solution included a dedicated Wireless Intrusion Prevention System (WIPS) to further strengthen network security beyond standard capabilities, providing enhanced protection for sensitive patient data in compliance with healthcare data privacy standards.

The comprehensive year-long transformation, which began in February 2024 and concluded in February 2025, delivers multiple benefits across KUM’s operations:

• Improved performance for mission-critical service excellence: The OmniAccess Stellar WLAN solution's distributed architecture ensures mission-critical wireless service reliability throughout all three hospital campuses, supporting the demanding requirements of modern healthcare technology and IoT medical devices. The new infrastructure delivers over 50% faster data processing speed for medical data transmission, including critical systems like Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS), compared to existing solutions.
• Significant cost savings and enhanced operational efficiency: The controller-less architecture combined with the OmniVista embedded IoT device detection, categorization and segmentation resulted in reduced IoMT deployment costs estimated at US $50,000. The enhanced network performance has also eliminated unproductive downtime and connectivity issues for medical staff, allowing them to focus on delivering exceptional patient care instead of spending time troubleshooting network problems, resulting in substantial operational cost savings.
• Superior user experience for both medical staff and patients: Smart healthcare services now operate seamlessly through reliable, high-performance connectivity as well as seamless wireless roaming. This enables staff to move freely with connected devices while maintaining access to critical patient information and communication systems. The integration of IoMT devices has also helped reduce the workload for nurses by enabling automated patient monitoring and real-time data collection, allowing medical staff to focus on direct patient care.

The solution provides a foundation for future smart hospital initiatives through its integration with Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS), enabling KUM to more effectively track medical equipment and optimize resource utilization across their facilities. With their new ALE wireless infrastructure, KUM is well-positioned to continue delivering world-class healthcare services while embracing digital transformation initiatives that enhance patient outcomes and operational excellence.