Table Of Contents
Wireless Network Links 2-Million-Square-Foot Medical Complex at University of Michigan
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Wireless Network Links 2-Million-Square-Foot Medical Complex at University of Michigan
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYUNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN HEALTH SYSTEM•
The Medical School opened in 1850.
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When its wireless local area network (WLAN) is complete, the healthcare providers, medical students, and staff at the University of Michigan Health System will have unfettered mobility and continuous connectivity throughout the extensive medical complex. The center's WLAN uses Cisco® Aironet® 350 Series and 1200 Series access points, and manages them with the CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WSLE).
Background
The University of Michigan Health System (UMHS), located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, isoneof the largest health care complexes in the world. It has been the site of many groundbreaking accomplishments and technological advances since the Medical School first opened its doors in 1850. Today, the University of Michigan Health System continues to be on the cutting edge of research and patient care. In 2003, U.S. News & World Report magazine ranked the university hospitals 9th in the nation, and among the top in many specialties. Today, UMHS comprises the University of Michigan Medical School, the Faculty Group Practice, three hospitals, community health centers, outpatient clinics, M-Care HMO, and the Michigan Health Corp.
The three University of Michigan Hospitals—University Hospital, C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, and Women's Hospital—constitute a key component of UMHS. The hospitals' 865 licensed beds are spread over the 2,135,816 square feet of three inpatient facilities. Within close proximity to the hospitals are the Taubman Health Center, the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center, the Cancer and Geriatrics Center, and a number of other related buildings, including those that comprise the Medical School. This complex is traditionally referred to as the Medical Center.
The Medical Center's wired infrastructure is built with Cisco technology. In July 2003, the Health System's network was upgraded to a 10-gigabit backbone with a prepositioned switch in every closet. The new network features Cisco 6500 Series routers and Cisco 4500, 3750, and 6500 series switches, making such advanced features and services as Cisco Cluster Management Suite software and quality of service (QoS) for traffic prioritization available to all UMHS personnel.
Challenge
In 2001, UMHS administrators began looking into options for providing wireless mobility to hospital and medical school faculty, staff, and students. "Our physicians, for example, wanted the convenience of being able to enter patient data or retrieve patient records anywhere, any time, rather than being tethered to a PC," says Joe Kryza, UMHS' director of Operations and Technical Services, Medical Center Information Technologies. "It's much the same for students, who are just as likely to be moving from one class or patient to another."
Solution
The administration determined that the solution would be todeploy wireless networking, and selected Cisco Aironet technology on which to build its wireless network. In the latter part of 2001 Cisco Aironet 350 Series access points were installed throughout the hospitals and specialization centers.
The installation of a wireless network at the medical school complex followed, and in late 2002, Cisco Aironet 1200 Series access points were installed at these facilities. The Medical Center, which covers approximately 4.5 million square feet, is served by a single wireless local area network (WLAN).
The facilities will are also interconnected, allowing users to move from one structure to another without having to log on again at each stop. There are, however, two separate wireless policies—one for the Medical School and the other for the hospital facilities. "We have put firewalls on the network and use a VPN (virtual private network) and media access control-based authentication for hospital access," which serves to protect both networks, but particularly the hospitals'—from unauthorized access, explains Kryza. "For the Medical School, we allow open registration. Students designate an I.D. and password when they log in."
Another 40 remote clinics associated with UMHS and located throughout metropolitan Detroit, will be configured for wireless as well. Here, too, Cisco Aironet 1200 Series access points are to be used.
Cisco Aironet 1200 Series access points support the IEEE 802.11b standard, which has an 11-Mbps data rate and operates in an unlicensed portion of the 2.4-GHz radio frequency spectrum. This band provides for three operating channels. The Cisco Aironet 1200 Series also provides a migration path to the IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.11g standards, a feature that adds scalability and investment protection. The 802.11a standard, with a data rate of up to 54 Mbps, offers greatly enhanced performance and eight distinct channels for improved scalability and high density deployments. Although this standard is not compatible with 802.11b devices, it is immune to interference from devices that operate in the 2.4-GHz band, such as cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens, and hand-held barcode scanners.
The standard, IEEE 802.11g, provides backward compatibility with IEEE 802.11b equipment, thus preserving a user's investment in an existing WLAN infrastructure. 802.11g is limited to the same three channels as 802.11b.
For the time being, UMHS will remain on the IEEE 802.11b standard, says Kryza. "That's primarily because we have a standardized laptop design. But the advent of the `g' standard and the ability of the 1200 Series to support it has generated some thoughts about dual-use down the road, as new bandwidth-hungry applications appear."
"Given our imbedded Cisco technology and long experience with Cisco products and service, Cisco Aironet was clearly a logical choice for wireless," says Chuck Singer, UMHS' network services manager. "But we conducted a good deal of background research before finalizing this decision." In the end, it was clear that, while other vendors might support wireless in small quantities, only Cisco had an enterprise-size solution—essential for the networks in which large numbers of access points would be deployed. "Wealso liked what the CiscoWorks Wireless LAN Solution Engine could do for us in managing what eventually will be in excess of 600 access points," he continues. "That helped clinch our decision."
As an intelligent, turnkey daily operational solution for centralized management of the entire Cisco Aironet wireless LANinfrastructure, the CiscoWorks WLSE provides centralized, template-based configuration with user-defined groups to effectively manage a large number of access points and wireless bridges, while eliminating the associated operational costs. CiscoWorks WLSE provides functionality such as proactive fault and performance monitoring, troubleshooting, notification of performance degradation including interference detection and mitigation from both 802.11 and non-802.11 sources, and can also help improve capacity use and planning with assisted site survey offerings. Notably, for security policy enforcement, CiscoWorks WLSE's radio management functionality also includes wireless intrusion detection services through around-the-clock radio monitoring functionality for rogue access point detection and defensive action. The CiscoWorks WLSE monitors the entire wireless network, including Cisco Access Control Server (ACSs) authentication servers, both Cisco Extensible Authentication Protocol (Cisco LEAP) and generic RADIUS, Cisco Aironet access points and bridges, and Cisco switches.
Results
Kryza estimates that a thousand wireless devices are now in use within the Medical Center—a number that will climb substantially once access point installation in the Medical School is completed. Physicians, clinicians, and other staff members who rely on some 273 different software applications can now access them either through desktop PCs or wireless laptops.
The principal application is a browser—based clinical data repository called CareWeb, which takes output from approximately 50 different sources and presents it as a clinical chart. Most UMHS physicians use this application, as well as other specialty systems that apply to their specific disciplines.
"Most of the physicians use the laptops during their day-to-day activities, and most have been converting their offices to wireless use," Kryza explains. "The same applies to the administrative staff. You can't go to a meeting and not find one or more people receiving or transmitting data from their laptops. Wireless clearly has become the network of choice."
The principal benefit of wireless is seen in productivity increases, according to Kryza. "Activities that our staff would not normally have time for, like catching up on e-mail or doing a document search, now take place in areas like the cafeteria," he says. "I use my laptop anywhere and everywhere, and just about everyone else does, too. We are probably going to slowly but surely convert most desktops to laptops as the price point converges."
To facilitate adoption of wireless, the Medical Center developed its own laptop training program and supplements it with follow-up support on its Web page. There was no noticeable organizational reluctance about adding wireless, Kryza says, although he acknowledges that there were lively debates on access policies. "Everyone wanted to be absolutely sure that we provided airtight security to the network, given our responsibility to our patients and in light of privacy requirements from the federal government."
Perhaps as importantly, because CiscoWorks WSLE makes network administration simple and easy, the new wireless network has not required UMHS to add additional IT staff. "It important for us to be able to manage our access points as effectively as possible, but support of the wireless infrastructure here is being done without an increase in networking staff. In addition, the deployment of the WSLE saves us from having to support an additional standalone server," Singer explains.
"The WLSE helps reduce mistakes by enabling us to manage the configuration of new access points and the easy distribution of changes to our existing access point base," he adds. "By using templates, one person can configure a number of access points at one time, using the same configuration, rather than individually configuring each access point individually—which also helps prevent configuration mistakes."
Next Steps
The UMHS administration is finalizing plans to install Cisco Aironet 1200 Series adapter points in many of the more than 40 remote clinics affiliated with the Health System. These clinics are spread throughout the metropolitan Detroit area and are between 25 and 30 miles from the Ann Arbor campus.
"Just as in facilities on campus, physicians and other healthcare practitioners in the remote locations will be able to access data for exams and then log it afterwards without having to return to adesktop PC. In addition to affording caregivers unfettered mobility, this will eliminate the expense of wiring all the remote exam rooms and putting in desktop computers," says Singer.