Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) serves the residents of Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston's Metro-North in Massachusetts. CHA includes three hospital campuses and more than 20 primary care and specialty practices-over 5,000 professionals in all. Physicians' ability to access information and medical images such as MRIs quickly and at any location within CHA properties is essential for helping patients and saving lives. In most of today's state-of-the-art medical facilities, medical information and images are delivered to desktop, notebook, and handheld PCs through local area networks, both wired and wirelessly, using systems like CHA's Picture Archive and Communications Systems (PACS) and Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE). The most current technologies, such as secure wireless local area networks and Voice over IP (VoIP), provide faster communications services and cost savings. CHA is rapidly approaching a completely digital environment. Today, nurses and physicians take notes and write orders on handheld and tablet PCs wirelessly connected to the CHA local area network. CHA's three hospitals and administrative offices are connected over a dedicated SONET ring network. SONET is a fast, fiber optic-based network that can handle layers of data and voice communications simultaneously. Medical communications require the most powerful of networks to transfer large amounts of high-resolution images. CHA can make connections and receive responses in less than one millisecond for critical applications. CHA employs VoIP to provide voice communications services over its data network. The VoIP network helps CHA resolve problems that it faces with linguistics. Around Boston, 15 primary and 43 secondary languages are spoken. CHA needs to communicate with its patients in all of these languages. It can do so by using its VoIP system to connect interpreters with patients and healthcare workers. CHA even provides videoconferencing for more effective communication.
CHA also uses wireless VoIP handsets to allow its employees to maintain voice communications with each other and on-site patients over its local network. Some CHA physicians clip Vocera communications badges to their lapel so they can speak the name of the person they want to contact, and Vocera makes the connection. The Vocera badges use VoIP over the local wireless network. They can also track the location of people around the facility. The VoIP technology makes physicians and staff much easier to reach. The CHA network also saves the organization money. Rather than needing specialists on-site at all locations, one specialist can service all locations over the network. For example, a radiological specialist can view and evaluate medical images submitted over the network and provide an evaluation in minutes. CHA's new network is much easier to administer. While it is often estimated that organizations spend 70 percent of IS resources supporting legacy systems and 30 percent on new innovations, Don Peterson, CHA manager of network engineering, calculates 50 percent for each for CHA. "As network manager, what I like best about this network is that it allows us to spend more time moving forward and less time worrying about what's already installed," says Peterson.
Discussion Questions
1. Why are high-performance telecommunications technologies important to the medical profession?
2. How does CHA use VoIP to provide better service to patients?
Critical Thinking Questions
1. What would be the consequence of complete network failure to a medical organization like CHA? How could this be prevented?
2. What issues of privacy arise in the medical setting regarding wireless networking?