Growth and Flexibility

To stretch operating budgets while meeting present and future needs, healthcare providers require high-value communications systems that are scalable, flexible, and inexpensive to own. There can be no compromise between a provider's financial needs and the needs of its patients. Solutions must be cost-effective for high returns on investment. They must expand easily and affordably to support growth and new technologies, eliminating the costs of replacing equipment. They must be resilient to ensure the continuity of critical medical care. Should disaster strike, these systems must deliver the versatility that allows services to be restored quickly.

Data
Due to trends like aging populations, medical advances, and new technologies, healthcare providers require versatile networking solutions that can adapt to change without substantial costs. They need standards-based systems to avoid interoperability issues with legacy or future systems. They must integrate disparate databases and consolidate information systems for greater efficiency. Their networks should support the delivery of care where and when it is needed across a range of devices and locations.

Moreover, providers' networks must scale cost-effectively to support new users and future generations of medical and business applications. They need to provide bandwidth and functionality as needed to deliver web-based systems, telemedicine, and other healthcare innovations. Their solutions must be resilient and always available, ensuring the continuity of essential medical services. When disaster does strike, they must be able to restore communications very rapidly.

Voice
Healthcare enterprises require versatile voice services that easily adapt to new needs and users. Their solutions must integrate all employees, regardless of their locations, into a cohesive, simple-to-manage telephony infrastructure. They need to reduce costs while enhancing messaging within the enterprise and with patients and third-parties. Voice services must grow with the organization without expensive and wholesale replacements of legacy components. Moreover, telephony must be reliable and resilient, ensuring that caregivers and patients can always communicate without disruptions.

Wireless
To enhance productivity, reduce costs, and accelerate services, healthcare providers are turning to a new generation of portable devices. The systems capture, process, and share vital medical information far more quickly, eliminating errors due to repetitive data entries and poor handwriting. They enable staff to conveniently and quickly access web-based applications that expedite processes like patient scheduling, diagnoses, medical research, and billing. To be effective, however, caregivers must be able to use them anywhere within a facility or campus.

To support these technologies, healthcare providers need the flexibility of pervasive, wireless networking. With untethered connectivity, caregivers have full access to information, test results, scheduling, and messaging, whether in labs, clinics, wards, or offices. Wherever they go, they bring their data and applications with them, saving time and money as well as bolstering the quality of services. Moreover, wireless solutions must be standards-based to avoid costly compatibility issues with existing networks and technologies.