Network Connection Troubleshooting

 

Our systems send notifications when a unit has not connected (“phoned home”) for more than an hour. Or TruMed Support may contact you about the network connection. Here’s what you or your IT Support can do to help.

 

  • Ask your clinic's IT Support whether there is an outage affecting your location, or if they made any recent security changes that could have begun blocking the unit from the Internet.
  • Check to see whether a network (Ethernet) cable that the unit was plugged into has become unplugged, or plugged into a different wall port by accident? 
  • If the unit was on Wi-Fi previously, check to see whether the Wi-Fi password expired.

 

If those don't solve the issue or if you have additional questions, please feel free to contact TruMed Support for help: 844-878-6331, Extension 2, or support@trumedsystems.com.


Background

TruMed products have robust built-in alerting and notification capabilities. Alerts that are about AccuVax and AccuShelf (e.g. temperature, power outage, etc.) depend on the unit having a good network connection at all times. In addition, TruMed uses remote access to support these products, and that remote access also requires a working, correctly-configured network connection.

 

This article covers what customers can do to ensure the network connection is set up correctly, and to help their IT support people assist diagnosing issues if any arise.

 

Network Setup

AccuVax and AccuShelf use Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and a cellular modem to communicate.

 

  • Ethernet is preferred – when set up correctly it is typically the fastest and most stable
  • Wi-Fi is acceptable, though Wi-Fi networks that rotate passwords can cause issues upon expiry
  • Cellular is a fail-safe backup if either of the above don’t work. It is not guaranteed since it relies on cellular tower proximity, signal strength, any building construction materials that can block signal (e.g. metal frame/wall studs), etc.

 

Both products are Medical Internet of Things (IoT) devices. They only need access to the public Internet to work, and do not require access to any local computer or network resources. We’ve seen two best practices for network setup that customers tell us meet their security requirements:

 

  1. Set up AccuVax and AccuShelf on an entirely separate Virtual LAN (VLAN)
  2. Use an existing network, but restrict (i.e. “whitelist”) the network addresses for AccuVax and AccuShelf units, and only for the specific traffic the units need to work.

 

For either approach, units need access to the following (please share with your IT department or contractor):