Dark Fibre PC Network-Public Internet Access Points in 5 Hospital

In IT
Sat, 3 Jan 2009

HealthManagement, IT Volume 3 / Issue 1

Author

Jan Pejchal/ICT Manager,Masaryk Hospital in Usti nad Labem

Regional Health Corp.

Martin Zeman, Martin Hostas

Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic

Masaryk Hospital in Usti nad Labem Regional Health Corporation (“Krajska zdravotni, a.s.”) consists of 5 hospitals with a long tradition and history - Masaryk Hospital in Usti nad Labem, Decin Hospital, Teplice Hospital, Most Hospital and Chomutov Hospital. The organisation was established in September 2007 to merge these 4 district hospitals and 1 regional (Masaryk) hospital under one roof creating the biggest healthcare provider in the Czech Republic. Masaryk hospital in Usti nad Labem was one of the biggest and most modern healthcare institutions in the country. The founder and the only owner of this joint-stock company is the region of Usti. The hospitals of the Regional Health Corporation (RHC) have 3350 beds and employ nearly 6500 employees (838 doctors and 2673 nur ses). Their area covers about 820 000 citizens.

RHC provides a wide spectrum of healthcare within its clinics and departments including a specialised unit. It also participates in pre-graduate and postgraduate education. The RHC Centre of Information Systems operates its own regional optical network on the basis of dark fibre technology. It has a backbone transmittance of 10Gbps interconnecting its hospitals and also provides an indirect connection to a national research network (CESNET2+) that connects a large number of institutions in the region, with the connectivity of 10GE over DWDM. Masaryk hospital operates as a data and communication RHC centre and is the first Czech filmless hospital, with its’ PACS utilised by all RHC hospitals.

The most significant step of ICT in supporting the transformation of hospitals into one company was to create a regional optical network. This provided hospitals with parameters that enable access to geographically remote working sites, allowing them to merge into one organisation, with one information and telecommunication infrastructure.

In September 2006, Masaryk Hospital in Usti nad Labem started a big project called “Public Internet in the Usti Region hospital network”, co-financed by EU structural funds. This project was completed in August 2007. Masaryk Hospital is The National Research Network CESNET2+ provider (10 Gbps access to CESNET2+ on DWDM). Clients of CESNET2

can access the research network through a RHC regional network. The Usti Region EMS offices are also interconnected through this network. The RHC hospital dark fibre network provides services of a federative identity management Shibboleth and participates on an international roaming system for teachers, students and researches EduRoam.

This project is supported by the grant of The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, National Research Programme – Information Society (TP2), No 1ET202090537, “MediGrid – methods and tools for GRID application in biomedicine”.

The unique characteristics of this solution come out of conceptual approach of building regional information and telecommunication infrastructure for digitalisation of healthcare (e-health) based on best practices in the field and also open and prospective technologies and services (i.e. dark fibre, MPLS VPN networks, EduRoam, Shibboleth). The solution provided immediate benefit during the establishment of RHC (merge of 5 hospitals) and increased accessibility of The Usti Region EMS to the infrastructure (Integrated Emergency System) while it was being restructured. This solution is also a great example of multi-source financing in the field of healthcare.

The IT Networking Awards was Supported by..........

Hospital

(E)Hospital is the world’s only hospital management publication in three languages: Published in English and executive summaries in French and German. With a distribution of over 19,000 copies and published bimonthly, (E)Hospital provides the key actors in healthcare management in Europe with the foremost, up-to-date information and a platform for discussion of current issues and events.

Healthcare IT Management

Published five times a year with a circulation of more than 7,700 copies across Europe, HIT addresses the most pressing topics in the healthcare IT industry including digital diagnostics, e-health, medical informatics, telemedicine and data security. The journal promotes best practices and common management standards in the highly fragmented European market of healthcare IT. HIT reaches a distinct and highly qualified audience of key decision-makers in the healthcare IT management sphere on pan-European level.

Cardiology

Cardiology Management is the one and only journal exclusively dedicated to management topics in cardiology covering best practice, latest advances and high quality care matters. The journal serves as a portal for the department heads and managers concerned, to share their experiences in meeting the complex and demanding challenges on their resources across the globe.

ICU Management

The official Management and Practice Journal of the International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (ISICEM) working in close collaboration with several important associations and congresses such as the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM), Euroanaesthesia, the Society for Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and the Emergency Care Research Institute Europe (ECRI). Based on the most recent clinical developments, the journal focuses on best practice, efficiency, better value-for-money investments, cost savings, ethics and optimal patient and staff satisfaction. ICU Management is, thus, the point of reference in the increasingly sophisticated area of critical care and emergency medicine.

Imaging Management

IMAGING Management addresses the most pressing topics of the moment related to best practice, safety, intervention, CT, MR, Ultrasound, etc. With a distribution of over 12,000 copies and published bi-monthly, IMAGING Management’s target audience includes specialists, professionals, practitioners, and key decision-ma - kers in the all encompassing world of medical imaging, in fields such as radiology, cardiology and information technology.

Additionally, the French version of IMAGING Management is published twice a year in cooperation with Société Française de Radiologie. With circulation of over 10,000 copies it reaches medical imaging specialists from French speaking communities and is the world’s most important francophone publication in this field.

Cyber Therapy and Rehabiliation

Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation (JCR). A quarterly published academic journal exploring the uses

of advanced technologies for therapy, training, education and rehabilitation. It mainly focuses on the rapidly expanding worldwide trend of moving toward technological applications in healthcare (virtual reality (VR), robotics, non-invasive physiological monitoring, e-health or adaptive displays).