New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital and its subsidiary, Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital (MEETH) are well-known for the high quality of care they offer patients. US News and World Report and other organizations have bestowed top rankings to these hospitals for their treatment in such specialties as cardiology, orthopedics and ophthalmology, citing the hospitals' use of leading-edge technologies, state-of-the-art techniques and advanced continuum of care. That pioneering spirit pervades everything the hospitals do, including the way they communicate.
It's fitting that the institution that performed the first minimally invasive heart surgery using robots and microwaves, known as a robotic-assisted epicardial microwave ablation, will now be able to transmit X-rays and other images to doctors at MEETH and its two Manhattan-based outpatient clinics. Thanks to the deployment of a new, private optical-fiber network, data exchange among the four facilities has been streamlined and more than enough bandwidth is now available to support the cutting-edge telemedical and collaborative applications that are in keeping with the system's high-tech reputation.
But while the new network supports the hospitals' far-reaching telemedical goals, it wouldn't exist if it did not also address today's economic and security concerns. For Lou Ajamy, the CIO of Lenox Hill Hospital, the trick to attaining the telecommunications upgrade was finding a solution that bridged the gap between future goals and present realities.
"We knew that the future, for us, had to be about transmitting medical images from location to location," said Ajamy. "But building a new infrastructure just for those applications wasn't possible. We needed a broader reason for the build-out and a solution that would accommodate both."
Ajamy knew the answer lay in a private SONET ring, which would not only address the bandwidth requirements of the telemedical applications, but also had the potential of reducing monthly telephone costs. But finding the right SONET ring provider was complicated by a few other demands Ajamy needed met: a plan for bulletproof redundancy, a speedy deployment and a low cost.
"The potential for terrorist attacks in New York City is, unfortunately, very real and that fed the need for a more reliable network to ensure disaster recovery. So we needed a solution that gave us dual paths with redundancy right down to every piece of equipment. And we needed to get up and running in less than 90 days."
To fulfill Ajamy's many requirements, Lightpath, a telecommunications service provider owned by Cablevision Systems Corp., designed a private optical network for the hospital group's voice, data and Internet traffic. The SONET access ring interconnects the four facilities in Manhattan via Lightpath's metropolitan optical network.
To minimize the effects of a disaster and ensure the hospitals' continued operations, each location was constructed with dual fiber entrances and redundant network components such as multiplexers, hubs and switches. In addition, the redundant access network rings connect to physically diverse paths on Lightpath's core dense wave infrastructure, each of which has separate Central Office (CO) locations and redundant 5ESS voice switches. The COs are both located outside of Manhattan, ensuring that the network can remain in operation even in the event of a major disruption.
The network currently supports the hospitals' voice communications, a number of data applications including patient order entry and patient billing, as well as Internet-based applications, such as collaborative medical research with other facilities around the world.
In the future, this carrier-class network will also enable Lenox Hill Hospital and its subsidiaries to further improve the level of patient care being delivered by its physicians and staff through a number of bandwidth-intensive applications. These include plans for a new clinical information system-a centralized system that can be accessed by doctors located in any of the hospital's facilities-and a digital radiology imaging system, so doctors can review X-ray films and MRIs on computer monitors at a patient's bedside. Eventually, Ajamy hopes that patient X-rays and other images will be available to doctors at their satellite offices or even in their homes.
The network was built and the first facility up and running in 60 days, as opposed to the 90-day requirement, which Ajamy noted was quite impressive given the breadth and complexity of the network.
In addition to the scalability and security, Ajamy has reaped other rewards.
"It's much faster and broader than we saw with our 56K and T1 lines. I didn't just buy connectivity, but redundancy and speed as well."
And cost savings are also projected. Throughout the length of the five-year contract, the hospital is expected to reduce its telecommunications expenses by about 20 percent.
In his role as senior vice president, product management and strategic sales, Kevin T. Curran is responsible for the strategy, planning and overall revenue performance of Lightpath. Curran joined Cablevision Systems Corp. in December of 1998. He began his career with AT&T in 1984. He left in 1997, as vice president, local services for the Northeastern United States, to join Broadview Networks, an upstart CLEC, where he served as vice president, sales and marketing. He holds a BS from Penn. State University and an MBA from Columbia University.
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