Woodstock Hospital selects Cisco Medical-Grade Network

Woodstock Hospital in Canada has selected a Cisco Medical-Grade Network for its facility. The Cisco Medical-Grade Network infrastructure will facilitate and integrate business and clinical communications between patients, administrators and partners. The network, which utilises 802.11n wireless technology, is designed to provide bandwidth-intensive and multimedia applications and information, such as medical imaging, to staff throughout the facility, regardless of location and including the patient bedside. The hospital will gain from multiple wired and wireless services across one IP network supporting data, voice and video for exchange of information. Woodstock Hospital's advanced IP network is the result of the collaboration between Cisco and FlexITy Solutions, a Cisco Gold Certified and Master Unified Communications Specialized Partner. The Cisco Unified Communications system includes approximately 1,000 IP phones, made up predominantly of Cisco Unified IP Phones 7975G and 155 Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phones 7925G. Approximately 165 IP phones are located in patient rooms and will provide telephony and entertainment services. Hospital staff will gain from Cisco Unified Communications features such as single-number reach, allowing hospital staff to receive calls on any IP phone or wireless device. The Cisco wireless network will also support third-party applications to enhance staff collaboration, such as Nurse Call and Extension Mobile, an application that allows physicians, nurses and other clinical staff members to stay connected to each other and to patients from any location, using any wireless device. Wireless capacities will also support real-time location-based services with RFID tracking to locate hospital assets and assist in the safety and way finding of patients and staff. The network will support several patient monitoring systems including Spacelabs and Primex (temperature monitoring), operations systems including ISIS Pro (for bed management), and equipment sterilisation. The network core incorporates Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches and Virtual Switching System 1140, firewall and packet inspection modules and Cisco Aironet 1142 wireless access points. In the data centre, redundant Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches feed Cisco Nexus 2000 fabric extenders to enable data centre operations. The Cisco Medical-Grade Network supports data, voice and video networks and enables the transfer and storage of data created by healthcare applications. The Cisco Medical-Grade Network supports the information, technology, bandwidth, and integration challenges of healthcare while providing identity and policy-based security from inside the network to beyond organisational walls.