Saves Almost $200,000 a Year by Eliminating Leased Lines; Achieves ROI in Eight Months
UCSF Medical Center is ranked sixth among America’s best hospitals (US News & World Report), and has individual clinical programs ranked even higher. Committed to offering the best possible patient care, the Medical Center is continuously updating its facilities and methodologies.
To improve the collaboration and communication among clinical, academic and research programs throughout the Medical Center and School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, the IT department undertook to link all medical center sites – which include three hospitals as well as 75 offices and clinical locations distributed across three main campuses – onto a single broadband network. Other Solutions “a Nightmare”The IT department based this ambitious “Unified Network project” on a Gigabit Ethernet metropolitan area network (MAN) – required for carrying heavy data traffic such as medical imaging files. The original network configuration demanded 35 point-to-point T1 lines for delivering voice traffic between the sites. “With new technologies such as voice over IP (VoIP) available, we wanted to save the cost of the leased lines by also sending the voice traffic over Gigabit Ethernet,” explains Stephen Sproul, Manager of IT Infrastructure Operations at UCSF Medical Center. They tested several VoIP solutions, but the experiences were “a nightmare,” according to Sproul. “The VoIP equipment didn’t work with our legacy equipment. We already had a dependable voice network in place, which we wanted to continue using.”  TDMoIP Delivers All Legacy Traffic over Gigabit EthernetThen Sproul heard about RAD’s TDM over IP (TDMoIP™) solution, which runs TDM-based legacy voice traffic over Ethernet-based networks, and decided to conduct some tests. “Now, several months later, I am pleased to report that all our voice traffic is running over our high speed Gigabit Ethernet MAN,” states Sproul. “Performance thus far has been outstanding. The TDMoIP equipment is working seamlessly with our legacy network, which includes Cisco routers and Siemens HiPath PBXs that use an inter-machine protocol called CORNET.” UCSF Medical Center installed RAD’s IPmux-8 TDMoIP multiplexer at its eight main network locations, with backup units to assure full redundancy. “We happily disconnected the 35 T1 lines we were using for voice, for annual savings approaching $200,000,” claims Sproul. The modular network design enables the IT department to deploy additional communication links between buildings, as needed.  Sproul is also pleased to note that, thanks to all parties involved, the Unified Network project came in on-time and on-budget.
For more information about UCSF Medical Center, visit www.ucsfhealth.org. |
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