Telematic in medicine



	Telematics in Medicine The experience of Sondalo
	Piergiorgio Spaggiari...............

Within the purposes of the National Health Service it is necessary to tend to the building of a structure net distributed all over the territory,
each of them aimed to supply special services, but in the whole interdependent and interconnected each other, to ensure efficacy under the prevention, therapy and low costs profiles.
Within this general context, the hospital represents a peculiar typology of structure, featured by strong multipurpose aspects and high degree specialization of the supplied services. The current acceleration given to the 'evolution' of health systems confirms the need to adopt the most advanced data processing instruments to higher rationalize the processes in the health field and to get a higher efficiency in services.
So, among the first needs, it is indispensable a telematic installation, intra- and extra hospital, in order to concretize the real principle of the information technology: the capability to make information circulates.
IThe employ of Information Systems can substantially contribute the bettering of functional and organization efficiency, whose basis just lays on the information treatment, involving the 'decision- action “basis cycle.
Information becomes the point at matter in order to support an efficient and effective management ; its organization, laying on coherent and complete data base and supported by an adequate synthesis system of the same information, eases the General Direction in taking the decisions of its competence with the aid of the Decision Support System.
Consistent with such aims, the supporting information systems must configure themselves as a “federation” of systems, autonomous and single optimized according to the peculiar features of the single structure, but at the same time with coherent information and procedural standards to allow the reciprocal interaction in order to supply an efficacious and effective support to the co-operation of the single services, supplied in single centres.
Only this way it is possible to support efficaciously the single structure, attending the several health and organization needs, allowing at the same time to build up an information integrated net on the territory, able to allow to manage patients in an efficacious and reliable way, as well as to allow analysis, aimed to administration, epidemiological and managing elaboration, on a regional, national and international scale. Also the hospital information system could be constituted as a federation of autonomous applications, optimised according to the peculiar needs of the single sector, but interacting each other according to standard interfaces and protocols, so to ensure the reciprocal consistency and co-operation. So the intra and extra structure departments organization and information fluxes must be adequately supported.

This article reports the technological aspects of the telematic installations of the Azienda Ospedaliera Morelli. The hospital structure, articulated in more than nine scattered buildings and linked by a more than 5 km. long underground skylight shaft, manifested first the need to arrange telematic infrastructures for 7 buildings.

So during 1997 and 1998 it has been planned and implemented a campus net, formed by nearly 3 km of optical fibre and related active part. So in the current situation the building corresponding to the 2nd block is working as a “star centre” by the means of a central equipment (3Com Cellplex 7000 HD) constituting the marshalling node and the centralized data server linking point, which properly holds the data base, common to the hospital infrastructure.
The telematic net, to make things simpler, develops along three concentrical levels: the first one is represented by the already mentioned central node, the second represents the equipment in each block, the third special equipment interconnecting final users.
All the campus net connections are realized following standards, featured by wide band capacity, in order to achieve an efficient transmission even of particularly 'heavy' information, as images.
In the peripheral blocks, a second level equipment (3COM LinkSwitch 3000) is linked to a category 5 copper cabled net, able to support the nowadays available transmission faster speeds, integrated in permutation panels, serving both data and telephony. The whole system is closed by a fibre ring, on the third level, fitting, by the means of the Spanning Tree technology, reserve lines in case of damages.
A “network management” specific software gives full net monitoring in order to detect damages or bad functioning.
This article reports the technological aspects of the telematic installations of the Azienda Ospedaliera Morelli. The hospital structure, articulated in more than nine scattered buildings and linked by a more than 5 km. long underground skylight shaft, manifested first the need to arrange telematic infrastructures for 7 buildings.
So during 1997 and 1998 it has been planned and implemented a campus net, formed by nearly 3 km of optical fibre and related active part. So in the current situation the building corresponding to the 2nd block is working as a “star centre” by the means of a central equipment (3Com Cellplex 7000 HD) constituting the marshalling node and the centralized data server linking point, which properly holds the data base, common to the hospital infrastructure.
The telematic net, to make things simpler, develops along three concentrical levels: the first one is represented by the already mentioned central node, the second represents the equipment in each block, the third special equipment interconnecting final users.
All the campus net connections are realized following standards, featured by wide band capacity, in order to achieve an efficient transmission even of particularly 'heavy' information, as images.
In the peripheral blocks, a second level equipment (3COM LinkSwitch 3000) is linked to a category 5 copper cabled net, able to support the nowadays available transmission faster speeds, integrated in permutation panels, serving both data and telephony. The whole system is closed by a fibre ring, on the third level, fitting, by the means of the Spanning Tree technology, reserve lines in case of damages.
A “network management” specific software gives full net monitoring in order to detect damages or bad functioning.

Leadership Medica^®