As the second oldest hospital in Australia, the more than 200-year-old Liverpool Hospital has seen its fair share of change. The most recent change: Adding a new wing and a state-of-the-art communications network.
When planning out the $357.4 renovation ($390 Australian), the hospital’s general manager insisted that the healthcare’s network extend beyond basic connectivity to mobilize healthcare professionals and better deliver patient care.
“Because we’re supporting critical medical data and applications, the network has to have extremely high availability, redundancy and performance,” noted the hospital’s CIO in a recent case study, Nick van Domburg.
In particular, the network needed to support a patient-centered electronic medical record (eMR) and a picture archiving and communications system (PACS). It also had to support call systems, security infrastructure, building automation systems and data management systems, as well as comprehensive wireless coverage in all areas so patient information could be used easily throughout the hospital.
The hospital turned to Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, which had plenty of experience with healthcare solutions. For the networking infrastructure, Alcatel-Lucent used a Converged Campus Network Solution based on the Application Fluent Networking strategy. It provided unified access for wired and wireless devices, and featured a simplified and flexible IP architecture that has high availability, performance and quality of service.
Alcatel-Lucent’s OpenTouch Suite for Mid-Sized and Large Enterprises provided the communications solution. It is a modular, cloud-ready solution that provides innovative and collaborative conversation services and delivers outstanding quality of experience.
The results have been nothing short of spectacular.
Important applications such as eMR retrieval are available all throughout the hospital, and staff are able to get the information they need wherever and whenever it is needed.
“This network has become a critical piece of infrastructure for us—and we’ve come to be able to rely upon it without having to question if it will work or not,” said van Domburg in the case study.
He added: “Good communications systems help people work better,” he said. “It means that staff don’t have to re-transmit files, and the system is fast so they don’t have to wait several minutes for large PACS images to load, all of which helps them to provide better and faster care for patients.”
