Bon Secours Health System
Case Study
Network Design and Delivery
2 Case Study - Bon Secours
eircom network supports complex care
across Bon Secours Health System
Providing acute care across five locations to more than a quarter of a million patients a
year, Bon Secours Health System understands the complexities and challenges of modern
healthcare. The need to maintain the highest standards of clinical excellence was the
impetus behind a major data network upgrade across multiple sites in 2011. Bon Secours
partnered with eircom to ensure that patient administration, clinical and patient needs
were supported by a robust, secure network infrastructure.
Bon Secours is the largest independent hospital
group in Ireland, with facilities spread across
four locations: Cork, Tralee, Galway and Dublin.
With around 2,200 staff and more than 800
beds, ‘The Bons’ caters for over 250,000
patients a year. Specialising in acute care,
medical imaging is a key function that underpins
most departments, from oncology to cardiology.
Tasked with ensuring the smooth and speedy
functioning of diagnostic imaging and other
medical technology systems, the hospital’s IT
department realised that the existing MPLS
network could no longer meet its growing
bandwidth needs. eircom came in with a
proposal to use its state-of-the-art NGN (Next
Generation Network), and a major network
upgrade was planned across six sites (four
hospitals, a care village and a hosting centre).
The new network provides broadband speeds
of up to 50Mbps - a big jump from speeds of
around 2Mbps on the old network.
Case Study - Bon Secours 3
“eircom has the capacity
to manage and support
our infrastructure... Many
companies will tell you they
can do that, but a fabulous
network without high-quality
staff wouldn’t mean much.
There’s no point having a
Ferrari if you can’t get it
serviced!”
Ian Brennan,
Group Head of IT, Bon Secours Health System
“In order to have all of these sophisticated
clinical and administrative IT systems, you have
to have the back-end infrastructure,” says Ian
Brennan, Group Head of Information Technology
at Bon Secours. “The big networks between the
systems have to be reliable, the performance has
to be first-class.”
A key driving force behind the upgrade was the
hospital’s plan to roll out RIS-PACS, a high-tech
diagnostic imaging system that allows clinicians
to capture patient images digitally, and to
quickly view, share and retrieve those images,
from any location. Thanks to the installation
of the eircom NGN, Bon Secours clinicians at
each of the hospital’s four facilities can capture
images (like X-rays and MRI scans) locally, store
them centrally and securely in a data centre, and
quickly and easily share them with consultants
around the hospital.
The RIS-PACS and the supporting new network
create efficiencies all round:
• diagnostic analysis and workflow are
more efficient for medical staff
• patient wait times are reduced
• hospital throughput is increased
The key benefits of the new network are “cost,
reliability and security”, says Brennan. “Our staff
use very complex systems, and we have to know
that the WAN infrastructure is going to support
them 100 percent of the time. Now we have
a quality data centre and a rock solid network
connecting up our five hospitals.”
Since installing the new network, eircom
has also provided a complete voice traffic
management solution to the hospital’s Cork
facilities.
4 Case Study - Bon Secours
Ian Brennan
Group Head of Information Technology,
Bon Secours Health System
In conversation with
Ian Brennan, Group Head of Information Technology,
Bon Secours Health System
You have hospital facilities in four locations
around the country. Does this geographic
spread present IT challenges?
Yes, it does, and in fact this feeds straight into
reason why we got a new network from eircom.
When we make an investment in IT - whether
it’s databases, servers, or the high-end medical
technologies that our clinicians use - we have to
ask ourselves: will we build this locally or will we
build this centrally? Invariably the answer is that
centrally is best. It’s more affordable and allows
for standardisation across the board.
For example, we recently installed a new
diagnostic imaging system called RIS-PACS
(Radiology Information System and Picture
Archiving and Communications System). Patient
images are captured locally, but then fired down
the eircom NGN to be stored centrally in a data
centre in Cork. A centralised implementation
means that the whole RIS-PACS solution can
be deployed out to all of our hospitals at a
lower cost than implementing it multiple times
in multiple locations. And that wouldn’t be
possible without a robust, secure network.
Case Study - Bon Secours 5
How does the network upgrade help the
IT department to support Bon Secours
clinicians?
Also, the demands on our networks are
increasing as the workload in the hospital goes
up. There’s a general upward trend all the time:
more staff, more devices accessing the system,
We’re really happy with our new network
the clinical workload is increasing. IT systems
because of the greatly increased bandwidth it
need to be supportive and responsive to that,
gives us. Take a clinical system like RIS-PACS, for and we have to stay ahead of demand, making
example - we need to make sure that the links
sure there’s no congestion on the network,
between the hospitals and the data centre are of especially at peak times during the day.
appropriate capability and reliability to support
this system.
The scalability of the network was an important
issue for us too. With the way medical imaging
The RIS-PACS system is a good example
is moving, we would have a challenge if we
of how the new network helps us meet a
installed a network that couldn’t be scaled. The
clinical demand. We’re working to make the
top end of eircom’s NGN network is way above
performance of this system as good as possible, what we require. And what’s great is that the
so when a consultant clicks on an image or
costs of scaling are reasonable. So if there’s
saves a report, the speed of response is first-class. a business demand, it can be met without
It means our users can just get on with doing
breaking the bank
their great clinical work on a day-to-day basis,
and IT is not something that gets in their way.
6 Case Study - Bon Secours
Bon Secours Care Village, Cork
What does the new network ultimately
mean for clinicians and patients?
We couldn’t use a centralised system like
RIS-PACS without the eircom NGN. It’s a much
faster way of acquiring and sharing images, and
it enables patients to get a result much quicker.
Clinicians can call up stored images very quickly,
consultants can share images quickly with
colleagues, patients can easily get a copy of
their medical images if needed - for example, an
overseas patient returning home. It also makes
the whole process faster so that patients have
less waiting around time and throughput at the
hospital increases.
All of that is dependent on a Wide Area Network
that can provide the necessary bandwidth,
infrastructure and first-class performance we
require. And that’s only possible for Bon Secours
- with several hospitals scattered around the
country - thanks to a very good, robust, secure
network. It gives us peace of mind.
Case Study - Bon Secours 7
The key benefits of the new
network are “cost, reliability
and security”, says Brennan.
“Our staff use very complex
systems, and we have to know
that the WAN infrastructure
is going to support them 100
percent of the time. Now
we have a fabulous quality
data centre and a rock solid
network connecting up our
five hospitals.”
Ian Brennan,
Group Head of IT,
Bon Secours Health System
Why did you decide to go with eircom for
your new network?
As a vendor, eircom has the network and the
necessary supporting infrastructure to meet our
needs. And of course you have the strength of
the company in terms of technical and business
know-how, as well as their reach across
the country.
The reliability as well as performance of the
network, and the security and scalability, are the
key issues. eircom has the capacity to manage
and support an infrastructure like that; they
have the necessary technical resources to take
on a complex job and you know at the end
of the day that it’s been done correctly. Many
companies will tell you they can do that, but
a fabulous network without high-quality staff
backing it up wouldn’t mean much. There’s no
point having a Ferrari if you can’t get it serviced!
We’re very happy with the eircom solution,
with the way they put it in and the reliability of
the technical infrastructure. Their way of doing
business is important to us, because we’re
dealing with clinical information that is critical
to the people who are waiting on it. And that’s
something we always want to make sure is as
safe and secure and reliable as possible. The
eircom NGN helps us achieve that.
8 Case Study - Bon Secours
Solution at a glance:
Major network upgrade at Bon Secours Health System
Customer need
• Legacy network unable to meet growing IT needs
• Introduction of RIS-PACS diagnostic imaging system demanded move to bandwidth-heavy network
• Decision made to move to eircom’s NGN (Next Generation Network)
eircom solution
• Data network upgrade across six sites around the country: Cork hospital, Cork hosting centre,
Cork Mount Desert (care village), Tralee, Galway, Dublin
• Bandwidth: Up to 50MB in Cork hospital and hosting centre, 40MB in Tralee and Dublin and
20MB in Galway.
• All sites (except Mount Desert) using eircom’s state-of-the-art NGN with class of service deployed
on all links to prioritise voice
• Additional dedicated 20MB internet connection in Cork using the NGN.
• Hub and spoke network; service hosted in Cork
• Initial network installation in April 2011, followed by significant upgrade in September 2011.
• eircom provided the WAN hardware for each site - Cisco 2921 routers a Cisco 1941 - and a LAN
switch upgrade in Tralee
• Complete voice traffic management solution deployed in Cork
Benefits
• New network enables centralisation of IT services and standardisation across multiple locations
• High-tech medical imaging systems are available to clinicians across the country
• Network-dependent medical systems are responsive, secure and efficient
• Solution is affordable and scalable
Case Study - Bon Secours 9
“The reliability and
performance of the
network, and the
security and scalability,
are the key issues.
eircom has the capacity
to manage and support
an infrastructure like
that”
Ian Brennan,
Group Head of IT,
Bon Secours Health System
Get in touch
To find out how eircom Network Design and Delivery can benefit
your business, please contact your eircom account manager.
www.eircomforbusiness.ie