5 year plan

[flipper35]

My boss wants me to develop a 5 year plan for the technology on campus. We are a long term health care/nursing home with an adult day care as well. We covered this once and it was rejected so I need a better timeline than what I presented. I have a hard time envisoniing what technologies we will need 5 years from now so if any of you have a crystal ball I would appreciate it.

Here is a run down on what I presented.

ASAP (June): replace our current phone system since it does not work after a year of headache (I did not choose the current tech on this one and I am still pissed about it, they chose the company that I ranked right below a can and string).

August 2012: fax server integrated with our document management software and EHR software.

November 2012 to coincide with the new wingwireless nurse call system

2013 new security cameras in the parking areas and walkways. Probably the new 16MP cameras.

2013 10GB hardware to go with the new fiber placed between buildings on campus.

2013/2014 purchase a Fluke XG tablet for troubleshooting our legacy network infrastructure.

2014 mobile wireless video conference kiosk for doctors to visit with residents when a liv visit is not required. The doctor can converse face to face with a resident in the privacy of their own room.

2012/2013/2014 build an employee website on campus for news and events instead of bulletin boards everywhere.

There are other unknown emerging technologies that may be beneficial to the residents or employees and by keeping abreast of new technologies we can plan ahead to implement them as they become available and cost effective.

We have industry specific conferences that I have attended and our campus is ahead of the curve on most things technilogical and they haven't really put anything out there that we haven't done or will have done in the next 18 months. So, all you bright IT guys and doctors (or people close to nursing home age), what would you like to have for your nursing home to have?

[Paul_Heery]

Do you already have WiFi throughout the facility? If not, I would recommend that you add it. That way, visitors could come in with their iPads and have the residents FaceTime with their great and great-great grandchildren.

[flipper35]

I put the wifi in about 2 years ago. There is separate VLAN and SSID for the residents, visitors, businesses and voice networks.

[flipper35]

We als have a couple HP touchsmart computers for the residents and families to use in our coffee shop. The residents play games and watch the Decorah eagles on it. Families show pics and such on them. We are non profit but have some generous donors for some of the equipment.

[911boost]

Do you have Security? There is some pretty innovative security technology availabe as well.

[flipper35]

Between the wireless arrays and the wired side we are pretty well covered as far as spam/virus/web filter/unauthorized attempts at getting on and encryption (HIPPA). I think a lot of progress has been made the three years I have been here (there were a few servers and virtualized desktops when I started here in '07) and have reached the plateau as far as technology that we can afford. But I am sure others have tech that we will be able to afford in the next few years. I am just not aware of it.

[Shuie]

Shared services? Cloud?

[porsche4life]

You forgot the digital message center out front and periodically placed through out the building... Could use those like bulletin boards too.....

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

You forgot the digital message center out front and periodically placed through out the building... Could use those like bulletin boards too.....

Or in place of bulliten boards. The current bulilten board has meeting notes and signup sheets. I would like to have those available electronically, but the message center is a good idea.

Anyone know if there are large format e-ink displays? We have a directory in the front breezeway that is about the size of a 70" tv and it is still all done by cutting paper and sliding the names into a slot. It would be nice to do this as an electronic ink display instead since it only changes when residents do.

[s_wilwerding]

The biggest item on our 5-year IT plan is to get as much of our IT infrastructure as possible accessible via mobile devices. More and more of our folks carry nothing but iPads/iPhones anymore (very few laptops when traveling), and even within the building, people don't necessarily use their laptops/desktops.

[flipper35]

I like the devices with native Exchange clients. Unfortunately our EHR software only works with IE8 and they have no iOS or Android apps available. Switching software is an on again off again affair here. I would make the switch soon if it were only up to me.

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by s_wilwerding

The biggest item on our 5-year IT plan is to get as much of our IT infrastructure as possible accessible via mobile devices. More and more of our folks carry nothing but iPads/iPhones anymore (very few laptops when traveling), and even within the building, people don't necessarily use their laptops/desktops.

Those are one form of access to be concerned with, you should however be planning for an access solution that includes those items, and others as well. Build a virtualized back end desktop/server environment, move apps off the mobile devices and the desktops and laptops and put them in hypervisor. For security reasons you want one application on your mobile devices, and it should be a gateway to your back end environment.

Best to have your users have absolutely no access to anything on their device at all. It stops security issues and unintended malicious activity dead in its tracks. If they need mail, run it on the server as a published thin application, same with any app.

Phone calls, email, and all apps should be inside a controlled sphere. When one of our users places a phone call on his iphone, it goes though our system and is tracked and recorded, same with any of their data as well. If the user loses the device we destroy it remotely and the beauty is that none of his info was ever on the device.

[flipper35]

We are just now virtualizing our servers. We moved away from virtual desktops because of some issues we and two network engineers haven't worked out other than our wiring is a mess in the old building.

The mobile devices we have are another sore spot. I was at my desk when the administrative assistant walked in with a Verizon Blackberry and said happy birthday. I told my boss (who didn't make the decision either) that i didn't have reception for Verizon at my house and Blackberry was a quickly sinking ship. The decision came from over his head and all he could do was shrug and say at least I could get my email via wifi at home.

We don't use any of the mobile devices for anything other than connecting to Exchange either directly for those with iOS devices (above us peons) or with BES since none of our applications have support for mobile devices yet. An iPad would be great for our charting since it is all touch based anyway. We do track (and filter) everything but don't have the control over lost devices that I wish we had. Good thing to add onto the plan though, thanks.

[Vipergrün]

Scott is dead on. Mobile is the fastest growing sector. Those devices should be controlled while on your network and allow them to wiped if compromised. It appears more and more exploits will be attempted via mobile devices. I assume you have to deal with HIPPA compliance. I'd recommend putting something about compliance, take away admin privileges, manage passwords, perimeter security, etc. The dangerous people are on the inside.

[john70t]

+1 to the wireless security.
Even cell phones are being found, the SIM security spoofed, and then thousands of dollars rung up in long distance using a different phone. Happened to a friend of mine while driving on the freeway through Chicago.

From personal experience, it would be nice to have bed alarms that connect with the wireless nurse call system and/or the call light. When those go off, it wakes up the room mate as well as every patient on that wing. Bad for people trying to rest and recuperate.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by Vipergrün

Scott is dead on. Mobile is the fastest growing sector. Those devices should be controlled while on your network and allow them to wiped if compromised. It appears more and more exploits will be attempted via mobile devices. I assume you have to deal with HIPPA compliance. I'd recommend putting something about compliance, take away admin privileges, manage passwords, perimeter security, etc. The dangerous people are on the inside.

Amen to that. Not because they are malicious, but because they don't have a flippin' clue. Most of the time anyway.

We do have to deal with HIPPA compliance. Most everyone does not have admin privs. I would rather hand hold every install or log in remotely and do it than allow most users the ability to install or delete anything. We use Xirrus for our wireless and have some pretty good built in security plus third party applications on the wireless and wired side.

No bed alarms. They are moving away from any type of alarm or overhead paging.

I put the mobile security on the plan in the early 2012 timeframe. Our CEO was sold on the Blackberry because of the encryption used during transmission of data, but I am more concerned about a lost phone that someone fogot to lock. Though the Exchange data would be unaccessable within minutes of my being notified all of the IM/Text and personal data would be available for a bit longer.

[flipper35]

I am very appreciative of all the help so far guys. Lots of smart people here.

[Touque]

Brent - have you guys looked into Healthsense from Verizon FiOS?

[flipper35]

No, we haven't. Am currently checking out Meraki for the wireless/mobile side.