IT Infrastructure Essay

Patton-Fuller is a community hospital treats all kinds of concerns (Ecampus, 2009). They provide healthcare services designed to meet every need and any stages in life. They have providing service since 1975 and their goal is to be as pleasant in their service as possible while being productive through their many communications between all the branches of the hospital. The hospital has the responsibility of providing good services and protecting patient’s rights. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) outline the principles and requirements that the hospital must use to ensure they are protecting rights. There is a large amount of the database that needs to be kept secure and this is one of the main goals of the IT department. Improve Communications Patton –Fuller utilizes four different information systems to improve communication and collaboration between senior management, employees, doctors, nurses, and patients. The information systems help to improve the communication between hospital operations, improve the relationships with patients, and helps executives manage hospital finances. †¢ the finance information system utilized mainly by executives assists in managing hospitals cash flows, assets, liabilities, and net income. This IS also generates statements required by federal regulations. †¢ The HR information systems was managing policies, procedures, and compliance requirements but now they use hospital intranet which frees HR employees to concentrate on more critical HR actions. The system used mainly by HR personnel for recruitment, training, and personnel evaluations. †¢ Customer relation’s management (CRM) is utilized to build loyalty between hospital and patients through the World Wide Web. Complaints and recommendations are tracked through the CRM proved reports to senior managers. †¢ The fourth system is the Knowledge management (KM). The medical KM is used by doctors and nurses to access online medical databases to assist in patient diagnosis and drug administration. Currently each room has one network connection. The network connections each patient room should be for the clinical PC used in the room. These PC’s should not be available to patient use because this out the hospital at a greater risk for security. OSI layers The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model has seven layers. The seven layers are: †¢ Application – this layer serves as the window for users and applications processes to access network services. †¢ Presentation – this layer formats the data to be presented to the application layer. †¢ Session – allows session or connection establishments, maintenance, and termination between processes running on different stations. It also supports communication over the network, and performing security checks. †¢ Transport – this layer ensures the messages are delivered err-r free in sequence, with no losses or duplications. †¢ Network – this layer controls the operation of the subnet, deciding which path the data should take. †¢ Data link- this layer provides error-free transfer of data frames from one node to another over the physical layer. †¢ Physical – This is the lowest layer of the OCI model. It also deals with the transmission and reception of the unstructured bit stream. Security and Protocols The current design for Patton-Fuller hospital might have some potential issues into the security arena. Avoiding potential issues and still providing the tools necessary for the hospital to keep providing exceptional service to the patients and families as well as the employees. Readings suggest that there should be three separate networks wired and wireless all with password protection: †¢ two of them will be for all employees inside the firewall. †¢ one of these two employees (for managers and executives) access lines with extra encrypted because this database will have sensitive information like HR issues and employee files. †¢ the third group outside the firewall will only be for family and guest access. One source said that a cat6 (which is what hospital has currently) speed is faster and about 250MHz vs cat5 at 100 MHz (Toms Hardware, 2009). It also suggests focusing more on the products that are connected to the lines to produce better speeds and productivity. Reference: Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Healthcare/PFCH/it.asp?topview Retrieved from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/103884 Retrieved from http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/234786-28-network-cable-faster-cat5