Ouch! This was a MAJOR Cabletron customer. Are they still?
Northwestern Memorial Hospital Deploys Powerful 3Com Multimedia
Network to Support New 21st Century Medical Center
Leading Chicago-Based Teaching Hospital to Deliver World-Class
Medical Services at $580 Million Chicago Facility Using Advanced 3Com
Systems
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 30, 1999-- 3Com
Corporation (Nasdaq:COMS - news) today announced that Northwestern
Memorial Hospital (NMH), one of the nation's leading healthcare
providers, will deploy a next generation 3Com® multimedia network at
its two million square-foot Chicago medical facility now under
construction. The state-of-the-art, 22-story complex will occupy a full
city block and house a 492-bed full-service hospital, outpatient facilities,
clinics and offices for 600 physicians. Caregivers will depend on more
than 100 of 3Com's industry-leading CoreBuilder® 9000, 7000 and 3500
enterprise switches and supporting systems to access patient-critical
medical applications and data. The 130 year-old leading medical
institution and teaching hospital for Northwestern University Medical
School will open its new complex in May 1999.
Known as the Redevelopment Project, NMH's initiative is the largest
such undertaking in Illinois history. NMH will consolidate most of the
facilities on its 22 building campus into the ultra-modern medical center
to enhance its acclaimed ''Patients First'' mission. Since 1992, Chicago
area residents have ranked NMH their most preferred hospital, according
to the annual ''Top 100 Hospitals'' survey prepared by HCIA, Inc. and
William M. Mercer, Inc. By combining most hospital outpatient facilities
and support services on one site, NMH will offer more comprehensive
and convenient care for patients and their families. The complex will use
3Com's networking technologies to improve medical, scheduling and
billing processes to bolster patient care and satisfaction.
''Our patient-first strategy demands that we provide caregivers with a fast
and reliable flow of patient information for timely and effective
healthcare,'' said Paul Barry, NMH's director of networking and
communications. ''3Com systems will furnish our staff with
up-to-the-minute patient records and diagnoses and the most
sophisticated medical services available. Our network also will support
the newest multimedia teaching technologies, ensuring we raise the bar
for medical training as well as treatment.''
A Technology-Rich Medical Environment
Every department in the new complex will depend on high-bandwidth
networking technologies. ''Radiology and pharmacy processes, which are
among the most vital to patients, will be done entirely by computer and
transmitted by the network,'' said Barry. GE Medical's Picture Archiving
and Communication System (PACS), for example, a filmless radiology
imaging system, will speed evaluation of x-rays, magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) and CAT scans. Using a standard Web browser, a
radiologist will view the image on a monitor, then quickly send a
diagnosis to physicians. Radiologists also will be able to access the
hospital's network from home to evaluate medical images, providing
patients with 24-hour expert care.
''If you're in the emergency room with a compound fracture, you don't
want the radiologist to wait even five minutes for your x-rays,'' said
Barry. ''With our network's ability to rapidly transmit huge multimedia
files, your physician will have them in moments.'' The images will be
stored in a patient database where doctors and nurses can retrieve them
at any workstation. Eventually, physicians are expected use the network
to instantly share cardiograms, ultra-sound tests and a range of results
from other key procedures.
NMH will use its 3Com network to deliver a network-driven laboratory
system so doctors and nurses can quickly access lab test results and
patient records. An enterprise-wide scheduling system will permit staff to
efficiently utilize hospital time and resources. A materials management
system will track the inventory of supplies and drugs to ensure shortages
never occur. The network also will support all financial, administrative
and human resource functions, as well as an intranet to allow staff to
easily view policies and other hospital information with standard Web
browsers.
NMH will utilize its 3Com network to enhance the training of medical
students with multimedia applications. Students will view live surgeries
and other operating room procedures directly from their desktops. Nurses
will take video courses over the network to maintain their certification.
''Our multimedia technologies will give our students unprecedented
access to information, resources and learning opportunities,'' said Barry.
Industry-Leading Technologies
After examining competing systems with the help of Unisource, a
minority-owned, Chicago-based consulting firm, NMH chose an
ultra-fast 655 megabits per second (Mbps) OC-12 asynchronous transfer
mode (ATM) infrastructure from 3Com based on 14 CoreBuilder 9000
ATM enterprise switches, which are the most powerful on the market.
They will connect to 122 CoreBuilder 7000 high density ATM switches
distributed throughout the complex, which will provide high speed links
to desktops and workstations for some 2,500 users. Two CoreBuilder
3500 layer 3 switches will deliver connectivity to NMH's legacy network
in its older buildings. Every switch in the network has redundant links,
ensuring uninterrupted delivery of critical medical services.
''Our 3Com network will be fault-tolerant and 80 times faster than the
old one,'' said Barry. ''Its open architecture lets us use standards-based
software solutions instead of costly custom applications, saving us
considerable time and money.''
To ensure speedy communications with remote campus buildings and
Illinois parties like Abbot Laboratories, NMH will deploy 3Com's
NETBuilder II® routers. For the fastest dial-in performance available,
remote users will access the network through 3Com's Total Control®
enterprise hub.
Ordinarily, the day-to-day management of such a large and extremely
powerful network would challenge even seasoned information services
(IS) staffs, but NMH turned to another 3Com solution. It will rely on
3Com's Transcend® Enterprise Manager network management
application to control its networking technologies. ''From a single console,
we'll manage the entire network,'' said Barry. ''We'll eliminate the need
to dispatch networking personnel throughout the complex to troubleshoot
problems, which reduces the burden on IS resources.''
NMH also will implement Transcend Traffix(tm) Manager management
application to gain a broad perspective of network traffic patterns.
''3Com's management tools allow us to easily optimize our infrastructure
for performance and availability, lowering our cost of ownership and
reducing our headaches,'' added Barry.
A critical issue for NMH was installing its network in time for the medical
center's opening. To meet its schedule, NMH implemented 3Com's
3Com Care(SM) Professional Services, which provides complete on-site
management of the system's installation and testing by a team of
experienced engineers and project managers. ''3Com not only eliminated
our stress in assembling the network, its team will complete the job with
months to spare,'' said Barry.
For an additional measure of protection, NMH also obtained 3Com's
Guardian(SM) service package, which includes around the clock
troubleshooting services and an on-site engineer for one year. ''Thanks to
3Com's ongoing support, we have the peace of mind knowing that we'll
always deliver the services our patients need,'' said Barry. ''3Com has
met our every objective while saving us time and money. We're going to
leverage 3Com's technologies to provide our patients with the finest
healthcare the 21st century offers.''
About 3Com Corporation
With more than 200 million customers worldwide, 3Com Corporation
connects more people to information in more ways than any other
networking company. 3Com delivers innovative information access
products and network system solutions to large, medium and small
enterprises; carriers and network service providers; PC OEMs; and
consumers. 3Com. More connected.(tm) For further information, visit
3Com's World Wide Web site at www.3com.com or the press site at
www.3com.com/pressbox.
3Com, CoreBuilder, NETBuilder II, Total Control and Transcend are
registered trademarks and 3Com Care, Guardian, Traffix and More
connected. are trademarks of 3Com Corporation. All other company and
product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with
which they are associated.
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Contact:
3Com Public Relations
David Hayward, (508) 323-1554
david_hayward@3com.com
or
The Brisson Group
David Brisson, (508) 653-4091 |
