Woodstock Hospital Becomes One of Canada’s Most Advanced Digital Hospitals with Cisco Medical-Grade Network

State-of-the-art network helps enable hospital mission to facilitate patient care using the latest technology

TORONTO, Ontario, December 15, 2011 – Cisco today announced Woodstock Hospital (WH) has chosen a Cisco® Medical-Grade Network for its brand-new facility, providing a highly resilient, innovative and economical solution to improving health services and advancing patient care.

The new Woodstock Hospital opened for occupancy on November 20 and continues to fulfill its mandate to provide patients and staff with a high-quality healing environment. Utilizing the Cisco network, WH will also deliver the latest technology for patient care and communications. The Cisco Medical-Grade Network infrastructure will facilitate and integrate diverse business and clinical communications between patients, administrators and partners in a highly secure environment.

The medical-grade network, which utilizes 802.11n wireless technology, is designed to provide bandwidth-intensive and multimedia rich applications and information such as medical imaging, to medical staff throughout the facility, regardless of location and including patient bedside.  The hospital will benefit from multiple wired and wireless services across one Internet Protocol (IP) network supporting data, voice and video for the fast and easy exchange of information.

Project Highlights:

• Woodstock Hospital’s advanced IP network is the result of the careful collaboration between Cisco and FlexITy Solutions, a Cisco Gold Certified and Master Unified Communications Specialized Partner.   Once FlexITy won the network and unified communications business, EllisDon and FlexITy worked very closely to optimize the design and implementation of the network, communications systems and integration of third-party applications.
• The Cisco Unified Communications solution 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 benefit 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 capabilities will also support real-time Location-Based Services with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking to locate hospital assets such as biomedical equipment and assist in the safety and way finding of patients and staff.  
• Additionally, the network will support several patient monitoring systems including Spacelabs and Primex (temperature monitoring), operations systems including ISIS Pro (for bed management), and equipment sterilization.
• 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 simplify the data centre architecture and operations.
• The Cisco Medical-Grade Network facilitates and integrates diverse business and clinical communications throughout the continuum of care, providing anytime, anywhere, information capture and access for wired and wireless applications and devices. The network supports data, voice and video networks and enables the transfer and storage of the large amounts of data created by healthcare applications. The Cisco Medical-Grade Network supports the unique information, technology, bandwidth, and integration challenges of healthcare while providing identity and policy-based security from inside the network to beyond organizational walls.

Supporting Quotes

Natasa Veljovic, president and CEO, Woodstock Hospital:

“Woodstock Hospital is committed to its vision of providing first-class health care to our community. To fulfill our mandate, we need to be a leader in innovative, high-quality services and keep a pulse on the latest healthcare tools and technology. The Cisco Medical-Grade Network provides the infrastructure we need to provide our staff with the equipment and information they need to facilitate patient care and provide the best health services possible.”   

Brantz Myers, director, Healthcare Business Development, Cisco Canada:

“We applaud Woodstock Hospital’s use of an advanced medical-grade network, allowing them to drive enhanced clinical workflows while delivering the right information with a high degree of security to the right people at the right time, saving time for the staff and speeding up the delivery of care for patients. Working with our ecosystem partners EllisDon and FlexITy, we are bringing together building design, construction and technology to build a leading-edge facility to advance patient care.”

Supporting Resources

• Visit Cisco Canada Healthcare
• Visit Cisco Canada Blog and follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ciscocanada
• Become a fan of Cisco Canada on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CiscoCanada
• Visit FlexITy Solutions healthcare microsite: http://healthcare.flexity.ca/
• Visit EllisDon Healthcare and Research

About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco Canada Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, has offices across Canada dedicated to customer support, sales and service. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com/canada/.

Tags, Keywords:
Cisco, Canada, healthcare, Woodstock Hospital, EllisDon, FlexITy, medical-grade network

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