Case Study:
Hospital of the Future Built on Mobile Network Infrastructure
Rockingham Memorial Hospital (RMH) Health care, located in Harrisonburg, VA, is a 238-bed community hospital providing health care services since 1912. RHS serves seven counties— admitting more than 16,000 inpatients and treating nearly 200,000 outpatients. When hospital’s management began planning a move to a new facility, they saw an opportunity to design the hospital of the future. Their goal was to use state-of-the-art clinical, information, and mobile network technologies to provide safer, more effective patient care. That meant an accessible electronic medical record (EMR) system, a picture archiving and communications system (PACS) capable of transmitting massive imaging files throughout the facility, networked clinical devices, and VoIP communications systems. Health care providers needed to have access to medical data to treat and monitor patients at any time and location. Robust Next-Gen Wireless Network To support their health care vision, RMH needed a next-generation hospital network that provided high-speed wireless coverage across the entire new hospital. The wireless network had to support both voice and data communications and as robust as a wired infrastructure, according to Michael Rozmus, RMH’s chief information officer (CIO). The most critical requirement for the new hospital network was that it provide a flexible foundation for future applications. For example, the network had to be able to adapt to rapidly changing health care technology, such as biomedical technology. Network Solution and Benefits RMH management believed that they would benefit most from a single-vendor approach. They invested in a Cisco wireless and unified communications network solution. Specifically, the solution consisted of Cisco Borderless Networks with Cisco routers, switches, security, and wireless infrastructure. Key benefits are:
• Improved emergency response times by 50 to 60 percent
• Enhanced clinician responsiveness to patients and other clinicians
• Achieved 100 percent compliance with regulatory standards
Q1. What capabilities did RMH management envision for the hospital of the future?
Q2. Why was an adaptable network solution so critical to RMH?
Q3. What were the main components of the hospital’s network?
Q4. In your opinion, how do the hospital’s network-enabled capabilities influence quality of health care and health care costs?
Your answer must be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman font (size 12), one-inch margins on all sides, APA format and also include references.