Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

How have we changed the way they communicate?

Surgeons are now able to access a variety of patient information wherever and whenever, without going to a central process records department

The challenge

Equipment from multiple suppliers on one network
Need to continually capture patient monitoring data while on the move
Tight timelines

Our solution

Seamless, converged wired and wireless infrastructure
Integration with key medical suppliers

The results

Surgeons can spend more time on patient management, Improved records handling
Improved patient care

Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BTUH) is widely recognised as a high performing organisation, and in 2004 become one of the first 10 NHS Foundation Trusts in the country. Scalable has been working with BTUH since 2005, developing a resilient network across the campus, and in 2006 became involved with a new project – The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre (CTC).

The CTC is among the most modern centres of its kind in the country, with the latest equipment and technology throughout, including state-of-the-art operating theatres and cardiac catheter laboratories. Delivering specialist treatment for people with serious heart and lung conditions, The CTC has facilities for 100 patients and the capacity to perform 1,400 surgical procedures and 2,500 cardiology procedures each year.

The CTC was a completely new building, which had to be completed by summer 2007. However the access for IT was from December 2006, giving less than 24 weeks until the go live date from when Scalable was given access.

The CTC involved multiple bespoke medical systems and applications, from a variety of vendors, including patient monitoring, surgery observation and perfusion which had never been tested in the UK as a fully integrated and working system. This came about primarily as the Lead Perfusionist was given the opportunity to create the theatre exactly how he wanted, to deliver the best possible patient care.

These applications and systems had to run over both a wired and wireless network and Scalable was tasked with integrating all of the new systems, as well as designing, building and supporting the network.

Resilience and integration

Scalable Communications deployed a resilient LAN for The CTC integrating with the existing LAN at the Main Campus, enabling BTUH to share applications and create a resilient infrastructure capable of meeting the immediate and future demands of the Trust.

This included a performance dual core chassis based solution with 20 Gbps connectivity to the existing dual core Extreme BlackDiamond 10K chassis at the main Campus. Each core switch was capable of delivering 40Gbps per blade and 1Gbps to the desktop with no oversubscription. The solution also consisted of a modular operating system to allow BTUH and Scalable to make changes without bringing the network down. This modular approach simplified management and support of the system and also allowed scalability and capacity for future expansion and applications.

Security was deployed by using a combination of 802.1x and IDS (Sentrient) which allows BTUH to monitor ports and protect against day zero attacks by combing the Sentrient device with key features available on the core switches.

Scalable’s ESP solution has been implemented giving both BTUH and Scalable the ability to proactively monitor and support the CTC and Main Campus, responding to any networking issues within the agreed SLA – a four hour response time, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

The most challenging element to the project was the integration of all the different medical applications such as Draeger, Sorin, Medcon. Each had their own agendas and technical requirements which had to be met by the BTUH and Scalable Communications.

Scalable worked very closely with all parties and had many workshop sessions with the engineers from BTUH and other suppliers. Implementation was achieved in stages ensuring that each supplier’s criteria were met and fully tested before being signed off by the individual supplier and BTUH.

The technologies deployed were leading edge and as such the supplier’s requirements changed regularly as they met the dynamic needs of the BTUH. Extreme Networks and Scalable were tasked to develop specific code to allow certain vendors to deliver unique services to the Trust. In addition, Scalable integrated bespoke Siemens systems with Draeger and Extreme to deliver Quality of Service and Security across the wireless network.

Ultimately after many testing sessions Scalable Communications successfully deployed a network which met all the needs of the suppliers and BTUH.

Improved patient care

At the heart of the development of The CTC was the Lead Profusionist, who felt technology could be used to improve patient care. He was instrumental in detailing what he wanted in theatre, from simple requests such as no wires in the path of the team, through to reams of information being gathered from all of the different applications and machinery in the theatre. There was a real opportunity to start improving patient recovery post surgery and in order to do this he needed to collect and store as much information as possible which could be analysed when the patient had been moved onto the wards. In addition he wanted to be able to have statistical proof to confirm anecdotal evidence of patient’s reactions while they were in surgery. In order to get all of this information, multiple healthcare machines needed to link together and send data to a central area where it could be analysed post surgery to learn from what had happened in one operation and applied in the next.

Scalable supported these requirements and met the challenge he provided. The solution allows Patient Monitoring Systems to seamlessly move from Wired to Wireless, by simply undocking heart monitoring equipment and moving with patients, without losing data, as well as the transfer of the data from the equipment. It is capable of handling large amounts of bandwidth for carrying Cardiology PACS (Picture Archiving Communication System) and Video across the LAN live from theatre during operations for training purposes. Lastly information from all of the machinery is exported from theatre to where the surgeons can access it post operation.

Scalable’s solution has been designed to support the existing applications, but also support future developments such as RFID tagging for patient tracking, monitoring of assets and IP telephony, both of which are currently in trials with Scalable at the hospital.

“Scalable Communications PLC has been a key strategic partner to the IT Department at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. This strategic partnership has been successfully developed since 2002, initially working with us to design, implement and provide ongoing support to a resilient local area network with secure wireless capabilities.

More recently the successful implementation of a 10 GIG backbone with 1 GIG to the desktop for PACs and implementation of wired and wireless network for The Essex Cardiothoracic Centre.

We are delighted with the high level of support services and account management received, not only have our initial requirements been met, but we planned for future growth and development.

On the back of the success of the networks projects, we are currently working with Scalable to roll out VoIP, RFID and Microsoft OCS, demonstrating collaboration/presence and availability."

Ian Beattie, Assistant Director of IT
Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust