The challenge: case study: Dr Pretorius, phase one

APC Solutions was commissioned by Dr Pretorius' medical centre to provide a wireless network between a hospital site, two GP practices and the X Strata Mine.

The sites, which were situated at different locations within the town, and with many high-rise buildings and other obstacles in the way, needed to share vital information between the hospital, Medi centre and on-call doctors' home practices to enable efficient diagnosis of patients.

APC needed to provide high-speed connectivity between all sites, including the home GP offices of Dr Pretorius and Dr Coetze, which would allow the on-call doctors to review the patients' charts from their own practice, rather than travelling across town to the hospital or Medi Clinic.

The current ADSL broadband service was exceptionally slow and could not deliver a suitable bandwidth. The average X-ray is 90Mbs and in order to transfer the data between sites, a disk of the image had to be couriered to the doctors at their home address. APC designed, surveyed and deployed a wireless network using one Motorola PTP500 and four Ruckus 7731 point-to-point links. This network, once deployed, provided a high-speed, robust and flexible network for the doctors in excess of 50Mbs per link, 50 times faster than the previous ADSL service.

This enabled the doctors to review patients' charts from their on-call surgery, therefore eliminating the time it would have taken for the doctor to reach the hospital, saving valuable hours when diagnosing a critical case.

The project was surveyed, deployed and installed from start to finish within a two-week period, with the actual installation taking just two days. APC worked with partners' Siemens and Promed to make this successful. The immediateness to which a patient can now be diagnosed has led to unprecedented patient service and almost zero waiting time for diagnosis.

Case study: Dr Pretorius, phase two, Rustenburg, South Africa:

Due to the success of phase one, deploying five PTP Wireless links for Dr Pretorius, APC Solutions (SA) was commissioned to implement phase two of the project. Phase two would allow further connectivity to the Accounts Department and Ferncrest Hospital.

A seamless high-speed data network for the day-to-day requirements of Dr Pretorius, the accounts department and Ferncrest Hospital would allow the transmission of patients' X-rays, large accounting files and patients' medical files to alternative hospitals for doctors to evaluate and the accounts department to process.

APC installed two links; link one, a Motorola PTP500 Lite from Peglerae Hospital to Ferncrest Hospital. And link two, a Ruckus 7731 PTP from Peglerae Hospital to the accounts department. The two links generated over 150Mbs of bandwidth allowing X-rays, which will often be over 90Mbs in size, to be quickly sent between sites for diagnosis. The links also allowed the accounts department to upload and share vital billing and invoice information between the medical practices and hospital, ensuring payments were made quickly and efficiently.

Dr Pretorius and his associates now have a rapid response time to patients needs. It has also allowed them to spend more of their valuable time with patients rather than dealing with files and arranging for disks of vital information to be sent.

A further phase three project has been scoped for deployment later in 2011, which will allow additional connectivity to other doctors' practices. APC will also be integrating a VOIP solution, which will allow full voice connectivity to all the doctors and hospital locations, providing free calls and a feature-rich voice solution.

Case study: Dr Pretorius, phase three and four, Rustenburg, South Africa:

After the successful installation and deployment of the first two phases to connect the local Medi Clinics with the radiology departments and local hospitals, APC Solutions was asked to deploy the third and fourth phases of the project.

To complete the final phases of connectivity and ensure the whole area could receive, transfer and manage their files, one final doctor and hospital had to be added to the network. Generally, point-to-point line of site technology can be used to link buildings wirelessly.

However, this final connection proved more difficult due to the placement of a large hill between the final two sites. Luckily, Motorola's non line of site technology allowed APC to install a successful link. Two Motorola PTP500 Lite links and one PTP250 link were connected to achieve maximum band width and connectivity delivering in excess of 100Mbs.

This final phase has seamlessly connected all of the local Medi Clinics, radiology departments and doctor's homes enabling them to transfer large data files, including X-Rays of over 90Mb, patients' medical files and accounting information between them.

Previously, doctors had to rely on a courier network to transfer data on disks between the sites. Not only did this mean the patient was left waiting for important results, it also meant budgets were eaten up with courier costs.

Files can now be uploaded and viewed in 25 seconds at any of the network sites. Additionally, the network now allows the sites to use VOIP allowing for clear transmissions and interactivity.

All of the departments, Medi Clinics and home surgeries can now work as an integrated unit thanks to APC Solutions wireless network.

Phases 5 & 6 are the final extension to the existing network which was installed in February 2011 by APC and which has been a resounding success for the Radiologist's business.

Phases 2, 3 & 4, constituting additional links to other sites, were added after the initial installation met their business requirements and in some aspects, exceeded expectation. Phases 5 & 6 were a natural progression to complete the network, which now seamlessly links all the key sites within the ambit of the Radiologist's practice.

The network comprised of installed links between a hospital site, two GP practices and the X Strata Mine. The sites, (the hospital, Medi Centre and on call doctors' home practices) are situated at different locations within the town and with many high-rise buildings and other obstructions between them. In order to speed up diagnosis of patients, faster and more reliable transfer of data was a critical business requirement.

The challenge

APC was commissioned to install the final two phases of the extensive network. The two links would connect an out of hour's radiologist to the network along with an accounts department. The new link needed to transport high levels of data, including X-ray files of up to 9MB each.

Our solution

Motorola PTP250 and PTMP100 links were installed delivering in excess of 100Mb across the network. The high speed, reliable connection ensured multiple files could be sent at any time of the day or night. This aspect eliminated patient wait time for important results. Radiologists could consult and check X-Rays online, instead of waiting for a couriered disk to arrive from the local Medi Clinic.

The result

The final network has transformed the local medical system. The wait time for patient's results has almost entirely been elimi-nated, thereby enabling the very highest level of patient care. Doctors and radiologists productivity is enhanced due to faster availability of important data, while in addition, critical images and reports may now be viewed at their respective homes, which is a benefit for after-hours consulting as the results may be dispatched with a few clicks.