Bon Secours health: system network design and delivery case study

Bon Secours Health System Case Study

Network Design and Delivery

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eircom network supports complex care across Bon Secours Health System Providing acute care across five locations to more than a quarter of a million patients a year, Bon Secours Health System understands the complexities and challenges of modern healthcare. The need to maintain the highest standards of clinical excellence was the impetus behind a major data network upgrade across multiple sites in 2011. Bon Secours partnered with eircom to ensure that patient administration, clinical and patient needs were supported by a robust, secure network infrastructure.

Bon Secours is the largest independent hospital group in Ireland, with facilities spread across four locations: Cork, Tralee, Galway and Dublin.

With around 2,200 staff and more than 800 beds, ‘The Bons’ caters for over 250,000 patients a year. Specialising in acute care, medical imaging is a key function that underpins most departments, from oncology to cardiology.

Tasked with ensuring the smooth and speedy functioning of diagnostic imaging and other

medical technology systems, the hospital’s IT department realised that the existing MPLS network could no longer meet its growing bandwidth needs. eircom came in with a proposal to use its state-of-the-art NGN (Next Generation Network), and a major network upgrade was planned across six sites (four hospitals, a care village and a hosting centre).

The new network provides broadband speeds of up to 50Mbps - a big jump from speeds of around 2Mbps on the old network.

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“eircom has the capacity to manage and support our infrastructure... Many companies will tell you they can do that, but a fabulous network without high-quality staff wouldn’t mean much.

There’s no point having a Ferrari if you can’t get it serviced!”

Ian Brennan, Group Head of IT, Bon Secours Health System

“In order to have all of these sophisticated clinical and administrative IT systems, you have to have the back-end infrastructure,” says Ian Brennan, Group Head of Information Technology at Bon Secours. “The big networks between the systems have to be reliable, the performance has to be first-class.”

A key driving force behind the upgrade was the hospital’s plan to roll out RIS-PACS, a high-tech diagnostic imaging system that allows clinicians to capture patient images digitally, and to quickly view, share and retrieve those images, from any location. Thanks to the installation of the eircom NGN, Bon Secours clinicians at each of the hospital’s four facilities can capture images (like X-rays and MRI scans) locally, store them centrally and securely in a data centre, and quickly and easily share them with consultants around the hospital.

The RIS-PACS and the supporting new network create efficiencies all round: • diagnostic analysis and workflow are more efficient for medical staff • patient wait times are reduced • hospital throughput is increased The key benefits of the new network are “cost, reliability and security”, says Brennan. “Our staff use very complex systems, and we have to know that the WAN infrastructure is going to support them 100 percent of the time. Now we have a quality data centre and a rock solid network connecting up our five hospitals.”

Since installing the new network, eircom has also provided a complete voice traffic management solution to the hospital’s Cork facilities.

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Ian Brennan Group Head of Information Technology, Bon Secours Health System

In conversation with Ian Brennan, Group Head of Information Technology, Bon Secours Health System You have hospital facilities in four locations around the country. Does this geographic spread present IT challenges?

Yes, it does, and in fact this feeds straight into reason why we got a new network from eircom.

When we make an investment in IT - whether it’s databases, servers, or the high-end medical technologies that our clinicians use - we have to ask ourselves: will we build this locally or will we build this centrally? Invariably the answer is that centrally is best. It’s more affordable and allows for standardisation across the board.

For example, we recently installed a new diagnostic imaging system called RIS-PACS (Radiology Information System and Picture Archiving and Communications System). Patient images are captured locally, but then fired down the eircom NGN to be stored centrally in a data centre in Cork. A centralised implementation means that the whole RIS-PACS solution can be deployed out to all of our hospitals at a lower cost than implementing it multiple times in multiple locations. And that wouldn’t be possible without a robust, secure network.

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How does the network upgrade help the IT department to support Bon Secours clinicians?

Also, the demands on our networks are increasing as the workload in the hospital goes up. There’s a general upward trend all the time: more staff, more devices accessing the system, We’re really happy with our new network the clinical workload is increasing. IT systems because of the greatly increased bandwidth it need to be supportive and responsive to that, gives us. Take a clinical system like RIS-PACS, for and we have to stay ahead of demand, making example - we need to make sure that the links sure there’s no congestion on the network, between the hospitals and the data centre are of especially at peak times during the day. appropriate capability and reliability to support this system.

The scalability of the network was an important issue for us too. With the way medical imaging The RIS-PACS system is a good example is moving, we would have a challenge if we of how the new network helps us meet a installed a network that couldn’t be scaled. The clinical demand. We’re working to make the top end of eircom’s NGN network is way above performance of this system as good as possible, what we require. And what’s great is that the so when a consultant clicks on an image or costs of scaling are reasonable. So if there’s saves a report, the speed of response is first-class. a business demand, it can be met without It means our users can just get on with doing breaking the bank their great clinical work on a day-to-day basis, and IT is not something that gets in their way.

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Bon Secours Care Village, Cork

What does the new network ultimately mean for clinicians and patients?

We couldn’t use a centralised system like RIS-PACS without the eircom NGN. It’s a much faster way of acquiring and sharing images, and it enables patients to get a result much quicker.

Clinicians can call up stored images very quickly, consultants can share images quickly with colleagues, patients can easily get a copy of their medical images if needed - for example, an overseas patient returning home. It also makes the whole process faster so that patients have less waiting around time and throughput at the hospital increases.

All of that is dependent on a Wide Area Network that can provide the necessary bandwidth, infrastructure and first-class performance we require. And that’s only possible for Bon Secours - with several hospitals scattered around the country - thanks to a very good, robust, secure network. It gives us peace of mind.

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The key benefits of the new network are “cost, reliability and security”, says Brennan.

“Our staff use very complex systems, and we have to know that the WAN infrastructure is going to support them 100 percent of the time. Now we have a fabulous quality data centre and a rock solid network connecting up our five hospitals.”

Ian Brennan, Group Head of IT, Bon Secours Health System

Why did you decide to go with eircom for your new network?

As a vendor, eircom has the network and the necessary supporting infrastructure to meet our needs. And of course you have the strength of the company in terms of technical and business know-how, as well as their reach across the country.

The reliability as well as performance of the network, and the security and scalability, are the key issues. eircom has the capacity to manage and support an infrastructure like that; they have the necessary technical resources to take on a complex job and you know at the end

of the day that it’s been done correctly. Many companies will tell you they can do that, but a fabulous network without high-quality staff backing it up wouldn’t mean much. There’s no point having a Ferrari if you can’t get it serviced!

We’re very happy with the eircom solution, with the way they put it in and the reliability of the technical infrastructure. Their way of doing business is important to us, because we’re dealing with clinical information that is critical to the people who are waiting on it. And that’s something we always want to make sure is as safe and secure and reliable as possible. The eircom NGN helps us achieve that.

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Solution at a glance: Major network upgrade at Bon Secours Health System Customer need • Legacy network unable to meet growing IT needs • Introduction of RIS-PACS diagnostic imaging system demanded move to bandwidth-heavy network • Decision made to move to eircom’s NGN (Next Generation Network)

eircom solution • Data network upgrade across six sites around the country: Cork hospital, Cork hosting centre, Cork Mount Desert (care village), Tralee, Galway, Dublin • Bandwidth: Up to 50MB in Cork hospital and hosting centre, 40MB in Tralee and Dublin and 20MB in Galway.

• All sites (except Mount Desert) using eircom’s state-of-the-art NGN with class of service deployed on all links to prioritise voice • Additional dedicated 20MB internet connection in Cork using the NGN. • Hub and spoke network; service hosted in Cork • Initial network installation in April 2011, followed by significant upgrade in September 2011.

• eircom provided the WAN hardware for each site - Cisco 2921 routers a Cisco 1941 - and a LAN switch upgrade in Tralee • Complete voice traffic management solution deployed in Cork

Benefits • New network enables centralisation of IT services and standardisation across multiple locations • High-tech medical imaging systems are available to clinicians across the country • Network-dependent medical systems are responsive, secure and efficient • Solution is affordable and scalable

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“The reliability and performance of the network, and the security and scalability, are the key issues. eircom has the capacity to manage and support an infrastructure like that�

Ian Brennan, Group Head of IT, Bon Secours Health System

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