A Good Hospital Needs Technology to Match

What makes a good hospital?

Quick care? A friendly nurse? Better-than-average Jell-O? Brazil’s second largest hospital center—Hospital Alemano Oswaldo Cruz (HAOC)—has a pretty clear vision of what a good hospital should be. And it goes beyond softer sheets and better food.

Their CEO, Fabio Katayama shared “a good hospital has to be more than a good hotel. More than good healthcare equipment. More than good doctors. A good hospital has to be a good business. And that means relying on data, on facts and on technology. Because technology is essential in creating better experiences for the patients.”

Dimension Data says…

At Dimension Data, we agree with Mr. Katayama, so we were happy to help when the hospital wanted us to set them up with new infrastructure. After doing an initial check-up, we found we also needed to sort some other systems first.

When it came to their phones, dropped calls and wait times were at a high, which wasn’t great for patients with no time to waste. We didn’t waste time, either—we set up an IT emergency room, partnered with the hospital’s IT team and got to work.

We brought in Cisco equipment to give their system an upgrade and connect 1,500 devices—from wireless and desktop phones to video conferencing tools, and we did it all in three days. That way, the hospital could answer calls quickly and get patients the answers they need—without any more waiting.

To make sure the system had the energy and flexibility to keep up with every call, we migrated the hospital’s physical servers to Cisco UCS Blade servers. This move virtualized HAOC’s entire data center—saving them space, energy and time.

Last, but certainly not least, we got started on our original goal: developing a new network with wireless capabilities. We set HAOC up with a new network structure, built on Cisco Nexus 9000 series switches. With the new set up, the team could easily monitor everything, connect to their headquarters, and give Wi-Fi access to both patients and staff.

All around, HAOC has upped the health of their IT systems, everything from their phones and wireless network to their data center. Now they can work more efficiently and create a better experience for patients, from their first phone call to their discharge papers.

Now, they’re not just a good hospital—they’re a great one.

The story doesn’t stop there…

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