Case Study

KTS Installs Single Mode Fiber to Upgrade Boston Area Hospital’s Communications Infrastructure

The Situation

A suburban Boston hospital needed to upgrade its communications backbone to meet new demands. The hospital looked to its long-time trusted partner, KTS, to do the work.

The Work

Phase I

The hospital had a combination of OM2 and OM3 fiber optic cables which had been installed over many years. With increasing demand on the network, including the addition of an electronic medical records system, the cabling needed an upgrade.

After evaluating the situation, KTS recommended the hospital upgrade all cabling to single mode fiber. The maximum bandwidth of single mode fiber has not yet been determined. This means that the new structured cabling will be able to meet the hospital’s demand for quite some time and is a valuable investment in the hospital’s future.

KTS replaced the cabling in the hospital’s data center with single mode fiber. This included 11 IDF closets which connect all the cabling back to the data center.

Phase II

The second phase of the project was the installation of 255 wireless access points (WAPs) throughout the hospital. These WAPs were placed throughout the buildings at strategic locations – which had been mapped out beforehand – to form an invisible grid providing thorough coverage throughout the facility. This means that anyone, anywhere in the facility has reliable access to the network with their cell phone, laptop or other devices.

Challenges

As often happens in healthcare settings, the challenges of this project were logistical. KTS needed to work around the hospital’s schedule. Work needed to be performed during specific hours to minimize noise disturbance, and they needed to coordinate performing work in patients’ rooms when the rooms were empty.

Precise planning and flexibility were required to perform work in certain areas of the hospital such as the operating rooms, Emergency Department, Special Care Unit, ICU, etc. KTS worked closely with hospital staff to get notified when these areas were available and then moved quickly to get the work done in the limited amount of time available.

As always in a healthcare setting, the KTS team followed all ICRA and HIPAA requirements.

Benefits/Impact

The hospital is now operating on single-mode fiber optic cabling and has optimally placed wireless access points, ensuring that the hospital’s communications network can support the new electronic medical records system and additional demands for the foreseeable future.