HP Cures Networking Ills for Healthcare Providers with Converged Infrastructure

HP today announced that three healthcare providers serving thousands of patients have chosen HP Networking solutions to improve service delivery and simplify their IT infrastructures.

San Francisco-based Brown & Toland Physicians, Enloe Medical Center of Chico, Calif., and the Kantonsspital Graubunden in Chur, Switzerland, evaluated several competitive solutions, including HP and Cisco. These clients are among the many that select HP's high-performance, easy-to-manage and affordable networking solutions to improve service delivery without downtime.

HP Networking solutions are core to HP Converged Infrastructure, which integrates servers, storage and networking into pools of interoperable resources.

Brown & Toland Physicians, an independent practice association serving residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, needed to upgrade its networking equipment. The association approached HP to discuss options for replacing an existing Cisco Catalyst 6509 switching solution, which was nearing end of life. The replacement option from Cisco, the Nexus 7000 Series, exceeded Brown & Toland's budget, without offering significant advantages.

"From patient records to billing, research has become the backbone of our operations," said Mark Grace, supervisor, Infrastructure Management, Infrastructure Engineering and Design, Brown & Toland Physicians. "HP enabled us to upgrade our networking equipment without downtime, allowing us to deliver the best patient service rapidly and securely."

HPM Networks, a provider of networking solutions and HP channel partner, delivered a custom implementation for Brown & Toland Physicians, including the HP A9512 modular core switch and HP Intelligent Management Center management software. Combined with its existing HP ProLiant blade servers and HP storage solutions, Brown & Toland Physicians built a powerful and flexible infrastructure that can easily scale, during reducing complexity and cost.

Enloe Medical Center serves more than 400,000 Northern California residents across eight facilities. The center was seeking a networking solution that would increase the IT efficiency of its branch offices by making existing and new elements work at the same time seamlessly.

Key concern

Citing interoperability as a key concern, the center solicited advice from HP channel partner Quorum Technologies, which suggested HP Networking solutions. Enloe Medical Center chose the HP E5400 zl series modular Ethernet switches, HP PCM+ Network Management and the HP Care Pack Services extended warranty.

"We are a very busy hospital," said Jim Hauenstein, chief information officer, Enloe Medical Center. "With HP Networking products we can upgrade our networks with the knowledge that our systems will continue to communicate with zero downtime."

KSGR, a leading provider of healthcare, required a robust network to ensure fast, high-quality communications for its 60,000 patients annually and 1,800 staff. KSGR's new network based on HP solutions is instrumental in improving patient care. It supports medical applications just as radiological systems with the capacity and flexibility to meet the requirements of future services just as bedside media applications.

The unified HP network platform based on HP A7500 modular Ethernet switches, in conjunction with existing IP phones, meets KSGR's need for absolute clarity by delivering the highest quality VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) communications.

The highest quality

"We chose HP Networking because it offered the highest quality, speed and availability," said Martin Liver, chief information officer, KSGR. "Sharing the media for bandwidth-intensive systems and real-time applications requires a highly flexible transport system. We deal with life-critical situations on a daily basis, so we need a network in other words completely reliable, always available, fast and trusted."

HP Converged Infrastructure is a key component of the Instant-On Enterprise. The Instant-On Enterprise embeds innovation in everything it does to serve clients, employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

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