Brad's new network: CIO Brad Brown of Erlanger Health System decided on a converged solution to tie together staff at locations in four states

Communications News,  March, 2006  by John Halton

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Imagine a world where doctors and hospital staff can log into the core network from any remote location over a secure socket layer (SSL) or virtual private network (VPN) connection and have full access to the information they need to deliver first-rate patient care--where healthcare workers in multiple locations can collaborate online by using electronic devices in real time. That is the world emerging at Erlanger Health System.

Information technology at Erlanger is essential to efficiently deliver patient care for both routine and critical situations. "It's important that necessary information is made available when and where it's needed to facilitate clinical and business decisions," explains Brad Brown, chief information officer at Erlanger. "This means providing a variety of communications services among our several campuses, departments, disciplines and care teams, as well as to our patients and their families."

Erlanger is a public non-profit, academic teaching center affiliated with the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga, providing care for patients in southeast Tennessee, north Georgia, north Alabama and western North Carolina. With six medical-based locations and some 900 affiliated physicians, delivering healthcare that makes a difference in patient quality of life is a critical matter for Erlanger.

With a communications network playing such a critical role in meeting the needs of patients and staff, Brown and Erlanger's 17-member network services team found themselves concerned and frustrated with their existing network infrastructure. Erlanger's separate voice and data networks covered a 125-mile radius and some 30 sites, making the infrastructure costly and cumbersome to manage. The network also included an ATM local area network no longer vendor-supported and PBXs for voice that were no longer under warranty or maintenance contracts.

"Our goal," says Brown, "has been to put in place a common infrastructure for all voice, data and video services provided, and then take advantage of converging technologies as industry standards became established and adopted."

Erlanger launched a comprehensive, two-year vendor selection process for an end-to-end network solution. Brown looked closely at the scope of functionality and services the new network would support, network management, cost and time requirements for training the network services team and hospital staff, the extent of vendor support, and Web-based support services, maintenance, investment protection, and especially the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the network. The final choice was a Nortel converged voice and data network solution.

"In the final analysis, Nortel not only delivered more options than we had asked for, but the company did so with a single-switch configuration, full end-to-end manageability and a simple-to-implement network plan," Brown explains.

LONG-TERM SAVINGS

Brown and his team ran final configurations through a TOC model. Even though there were less-expensive offerings in terms of initial capital outlay, the total package solution from Nortel would cost less and provide more functionality over the course of three years.

The network overhaul for Erlanger involves a three-to-five-year, phased-in approach to best prevent disrupting the delivery of patient care. The data network, once at risk due to product discontinuations and a lack of vendor support, is now built on Nortel's Ethernet Routing Switches 8600, 8300 and 5500, Business Policy Sw itch (BPS) 2000 and Ethernet Switches 470-POE and 460-POE to create the data backbone. A SONET smart ring provided by BellSouth uses Nortel high-speed OC-3 links to interconnect the core at Erlanger's downtown campus with the company's three main remote campuses.

To provide the infrastructure and quality of service (QoS) to support advanced voice communications, Erlanger opted for a network with an Erhernet solution vs. the previously costly and hard-to-manage ATM configuration. The Ethernet Routing Switch 8600, combined with the Business Policy Switch and Ethernet Switch 460, supply the infrastructure designed to handle bandwidth-stringent applications.

QoS, pro-active voice quality management, and power-over-Ethernet ports and configuration tools make implementing IP telephony easier. QoS and extensive traffic filtering ensure that bandwidth is allocated to the applications that need it the most. Wire-speed routing and non-blocking switch fabrics provide the performance required for unified communication applications. The resulting benefits for applications such as IP telephony are resilient voice quality and call routing over the most cost-effective method at any given time.

Erlanger chose Nortel Communication Server 1000e--a fully distributed IP PBX-- to support a wide spectrum of applications and telephony features. This allows Erlanger to have seamless network integration, simplified network management, greater flexibility in network deployment, and reduced costs for supporting its users across multiple sites and those needing remote access.