Technology infrastructure helps hospital ‘do better’

Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare’s (EMHC’s) 50-acre main campus boasts an 866,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art hospital, opened in 2011. When designing the new facility, EMHC was able to decide what it wanted to achieve and design the facility around that ultimate goal.

“It allowed us to rethink every step of the patient experience, asking, ‘How can we do this better?’ We knew if we focused on the patient, everything else would follow — including the most technologically advanced care,” says Leo Fronza, who was CEO of EMHC at the time of construction.

A robust infrastructure assures EMHC that doctors can rely on the latest technological advances in medicine to treat patients, while patients have access to systems that make their stays more comfortable. A key strategic goal of the project was to install an infrastructure that was robust, reliable and scalable to support critical systems and provide staff and patients with uninterrupted access to resources.

A long-term solution was also a key objective for the hospital to limit renovations and upgrades that interrupt day-to-day operations. Therefore, installing an infrastructure that met both immediate and long-term needs was a must. “When a vendor eventually comes in with new equipment that needs a 10-GbE copper connection, I know we have the technology to support it,” says Matt Sterling, EMHC’s former director of information services.

By installing a 10-gigabit Ethernet copper and fiber network, EMHC has the ability to make new equipment decisions ranging from wireless access point upgrades to the installation of a da Vinci surgical robot based on medical and business needs as opposed to infrastructure limitations.