STEP INTO THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE

Once again, HIMSS attendees have the exciting opportunity to step into the future of healthcare. At HIMSS17 connected healthcare comes to life in the Intelligent Health Pavilion (IHP), which provides working demonstrations of the latest technologies throughout the healthcare ecosystem, and the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare. Attendees will be able to experience technology and solutions in context as they watch multiple technologies seamlessly interoperate with real-world examples; tour a smart medical home and an intelligent hospital (complete with an ER and OR); discover solutions and technologies at 60+ vendor kiosks; gain insights from thought leaders in the Leadership Theater and explore presentations on IoT, mHealth and Wearables in the Innovation Theater.

The IHP will be powered by Extreme for the fourth year in a row, as we provide the high performance wireless and wired switching and network analytics solution to support the 26,000 square foot, full mock-up hospital setting. We will demonstrate how we work with many different vendors and their devices to provide network connectivity for secure and seamless communications and work flows that allow hospitals to deliver patient satisfaction.

WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD A HOSPITAL-GRADE NETWORK

So what goes into building a network to power the IHP? Well to be honest, it’s not too different from what we do when we design a network for one of our many hospital or healthcare customers, of course other than the fact that the IHP is built over the course of 4 days!

We work with all of the companies that will be showcased in the IHP including, Draeger, Vocera, Stanley Healthcare, HillRom,  and NathHealth to provide them with network connectivity and find out what requirements must be met for their devices to work. It kicks off with a meeting that spans a few days, where all the different top line medical companies with innovative products, hardware, applications, mobile devices and mobile applications come together in one room to figure out where their focus should be. One of my main takeaways was how nice it was to see companies with competing companies working together to come up with the best solution.

We then take all of this information and design the network that will provide the connectivity throughout the IHP as well as connectivity for several vendor booths back to the IHP network.  Wall plate Aps (3912)  will be provided for each IHP room for display, and use and in some cases, and our camera Aps (3916) will be used to provide Wi-Fi connectivity and video surveillance.

The common theme within healthcare is communication and coordination. In today’s healthcare environment everything is connected and Extreme becomes the plumbing for all those applications, devices, wearables, critical care devices and patient monitors to not only connect, but to be viewed, managed, controlled, analyzed and reported on in order to optimize patient treatment.

 Working with these vendors enables us, at Extreme Networks, the opportunity to optimize the network for our current and future customers and partners.  We find out bandwidth requirements, such as Sony’s overhead 4k HD cameras create profiles for security in Extreme Control, and fingerprints for our Extreme Analytics platform.

MANAGING THE COMPLEXITY OF A CLINICAL NETWORK

Clinical and hospital networks are arguably the most complex systems that exist due to the security required for patient information and medical devices. IoT, patient satisfaction and medical device security are all on the minds of hospital executives who are striving to strike the delicate balance between network availability and security; patient safety and patient satisfaction. Healthcare IT works tirelessly to secure medical devices and ensure the availability of the guest network for in-hospital entertainment or communications to the outside world and the hospital network for normal enterprise applications for back office services.

Hospitals are a primary target for hackers because patient medical information is more valuable than credit card and personal information. Certainly no CIO or CSIO wants to see their hospital in the headlines for patient data breaches. In the IHP you will see how ExtremeControl can provide security at the edge and limit onsite security breaches and how Extreme AirDefense, along with ExtremeManagement, can provide compliance reports for PCI and HIPAA.

SEE YOU IN THE IHP!

Visit Extreme in the IHP to learn more about how an intelligent network infrastructure can deliver the functionality and support required by the medical devices and applications used in next generation hospitals. Learn more and register for HIMSS17 here.