Mohanachandran is senior IT management professional with over 15 years of experience in various phases of healthcare project management
Technology has transformed nowadays to be the utmost solution, to face workflow challenges of hospitals. This has to be thought out from the early stages of building a facility from scratch, so that you won't have any challenges while moving into operations, from the project stage. Various sensational areas of patient connect and clinical expertise can be made easy, by implementing proper technology as required. Still, the key area to be taken care of here is not to complicate the system, by implementing many information sources/repositories in bits and pieces. Listing down some of my thoughts/views on this, while you start.

Infrastructure Planning
Infrastructure Planning is an area that is still not thought wide during the initial planning phase, which could be your base to implement several technologies ahead.

These include Datacentre Architecture: an initial decision has to be made on the DC hosting methodologies, case to case. The options that can be considered are On-premise DC. The manageability on the high end, non-independent of external factors like connectivity, highest data transfer are some of the advantages while opting for this model. Still, as negatives, we could consider huge CAPEX, spontaneous changing technologies, end of sale/support challenges, etc. Another option is Cloud Hosted DC. No initial CAPEX, pay as you use, the security of the infrastructure, no worry hardware configuration, etc can be seen as positives, while opting for this approach. Still, where your data is, manageability of your data, privacy, and data transfer concerns can be on the negative side. Hybrid DC is another alternative. If you are having a highly exposed application running with huge real-time hits/IOPS, we consider a hybrid DC setup that can cater to this requirement. SAS and IAAS services are a prime example of this scenario.

Network Infrastructure: based on the complexity and coverage of applications you used in the facility, the network has to be defined redundantly including wired and wireless. While defined the scope of network infra, other medical modality aspects also to be taken care of along with end-user computing and mobility. The major components that contribute to this aspect would be end-user devices, medical modalities, PA systems, CCTV cameras, telephony, access control systems, patient monitors, bedside systems, and

nurse call systems. If you can establish a redundant network between all these spokes, a major challenge of communication internally would be solved.

Server Architecture: While defining the server architecture, you may consider the following three approaches based on the count of applications hosted and its complexity. Traditional Setup – one Application/server which may not be cost-effective. 3-Tier Architecture – Storage-SAN Network-server model through different components, with high uptime and scalability, but have high TCO and difficult to manage because of its complex nature. Hyperconverged– Server-Network-Storage in a single mode with its simplicity, ease of deployment & maintenance and cost savings.

Security & Compliances
One more key area of focus should be on the following aspects of security, in the current scenario of targeted attacks specific to patient data/hospitals: Excellent firewall, Good Endpoint security & DLP, Email security, Firewall for Web applications, and Secure VPN Tunnels

Finding the Right Software
To drive the core business, there is a combination of multiple software to be considered as the backbone. While evaluating, areas to be considered are redundancy, performance, platform dependency, and high integration capacities.