Cisco Cisco Wireless Control System Version 4.0 Leaflet
Customer Case Study
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Community Hospital Expands Wirelessly
Greenwich Hospital installs a Cisco Unified Wireless Network to meet the needs and
expectations of its patients, clinicians and community.
Business Challenge
Greenwich Hospital is a 174-bed healthcare center
serving the communities of Fairfield County,
Connecticut and Westchester County, New York. A
member of Yale New-Haven Health Systems and a
major academic affiliate of the Yale University
School of Medicine, the hospital is both an
important teaching institution and a progressive
provider of medical care.
In 1992, the administration staff launched a US$60
million campaign to expand and update the hospital,
and now the campus includes several state-of-the-
art buildings. Although they have helped to ensure
superior care for patients, the improvements have
posed a challenge for the hospital’s information
technology staff.
“We have a very spread-out facility—several
buildings that are two to five miles away from each
other,” says Nassar Nizami, chief security officer at
the hospital. Until recently, the hospital was
operating a wireless LAN for its medical and
administrative staff. But that WLAN was composed
of standalone, individually-managed access points
(APs). If someone reported a problem, the staff
would have to physically find and fix the faulty AP.
To address these concerns, last year the hospital
decided to upgrade its WLAN with a system that
could be managed and controlled centrally.
Nizami also sought a system that could support
high-bandwidth applications such as video feeds
and the transmission of detailed X-rays and MRI
scans. The existing 802.11b network handled basic
data traffic well, but “for some of the imaging
machines, the 802.11b network was not sufficient,”
he says.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
GREENWICH HOSPITAL
●
Healthcare
●
Greenwich, Connecticut
●
174 beds
●
1800 employees
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
●
Provide the clinical teams with mobile
technologies capable of expediting the timely
delivery of high quality care
delivery of high quality care
●
Select and implement a cost-effective solution
that meets the technical requirements of the
various technologies
various technologies
●
Select a solution that is flexible and adapts to
the continual wireless standard progressions of
802.x
802.x
●
Manage wireless network activity that spans
several buildings
●
Mitigate security risks
●
Improve quality of service for wireless voice
over IP calls
NETWORK SOLUTION
●
A Unified Wireless Network from Cisco
provides remote management of disparate
access points
access points
●
Separate VLAN for patients and guests helps
to ensure that confidential data remains secure
●
Separate VLAN for voice traffic helps to
ensure superior quality of service
BUSINESS RESULTS
●
Providing ubiquitous wireless access keeps
clinical teams connected with one another and
the patient clinical information they depend on.
the patient clinical information they depend on.
●
Wireless e-mail and Internet access improves
quality of life for patients and their families
during their hospitalization and visits.
during their hospitalization and visits.
●
The network enhances communications
between caregivers and the supporting
services staff.
services staff.
●
Prioritizing wireless voice traffic protects the
quality of vital phone calls, and keeps them
from being dropped.
from being dropped.
●
Centralized network management saves a
great deal of time for the IT staff
●
Network-related help desk calls have been
reduced