Hospital
Overview
After a fire destroyed previous data center migration plans, a major Boston area hospital sought to connect to a new data center with a fool proof connection and a strong disaster recovery plan. With patients carrying higher expectations for care and procedural efficiency, the hospital also needed better, faster systems to maximize their time.
Background
The nationally-recognized hospital was preparing to relocate to a new data center, but weeks before the move, the building caught fire and the hospital suffered a major setback. Although no servers, data or installed hardware were damaged, disaster recovery quickly became a top priority in their new plan.
Business Challenge
The hospital had three priorities that had to be met – high-speed, efficient data recovery and network reliability. In addition, these provisions had to be met while also coordinating three large organizations, one of which included the city of Boston.
Within the healthcare industry, patients’ expectations for care and procedural efficiency are on the rise. NEF needed to design a network that would deliver information quickly and accurately. In addition, physicians need better, faster systems to maximize their time and specialties. This would not only give them the opportunity to provide information sooner, it will allow them to see more patients over the course of a day.
With the experience of the fire behind them, highly-developed recovery initiatives quickly jumped to the top of the hospital’s list of priorities. This included an HIPAA compliance of required off-site back-up of voluminous and highly sensitive information.
A reliable connection was imperative because all mission critical applications, which include payroll, scheduling, Meditech and all Web-based portals for patient discharge referrals, were going to be supported by the fiber connection to the data center.
Lastly, this situation was unique because the dark fiber line would be shared – one part would be leased to the hospital, while the other part would be leased to a separate corporation. And because it would run through the city of Boston, there were a lot of permits that needed to be obtained. NEF would have to coordinate these three organizations in an effort to ensure that all systems would be up and running without any networking delays.
Network Solution
NEF worked together with the hospital to design a secure, custom dark fiber network that enabled all facilities to connect to an off-site data center and which provided solutions to the hospitals top three needs.
Speed
By connecting the hospital to a dark fiber line, NEF enabled the hospital to deploy an optical network platform that provided the ultimate in scalability. Network administrators can now control the amount and type of bandwidth, as well as choose which cards and equipment they want to use. No longer dependent on the carrier’s ability to provision services for additional costs, the control of the network is completely in the hospital’s hands.
Disaster Recovery
NEF acquired all permitting necessary from the city of Boston to insure that all systems would be up and running without any networking delays. In addition to the fiber needed to run the current network, NEF provided extra fiber that could be used to backup data in an off-site location.
Reliability
NEF tapped into Boston’s wealth of unused optical fiber, giving the hospital reliable connectivity to sensitive information and exponentially higher bandwidth for health care and records applications than ever before.
Final Results
With the new fiber optic network in place, caregivers have practically zero wait for information due to computer latency. This gives physicians more time to care for patients, making the patients the real winners. The hospital’s Chief Information Officer says that “the reliability of the network has been outstanding and truly a necessity for our mission critical operations and disaster recovery. Our connectivity is the pride of the organization, and NEF was truly a partner, not just a broker, of those services.”
Contact NEF today to find out more about dark fiber and how it can benefit your company.
