San Diego, CA – Sept. 20 2012 – Palomar Health, California's largest health district, announced today that it has selected multiple Cisco collaboration, network and data center solutions as the foundation for building one of the most technologically-advanced hospitals in the nation. The new 288-bed, 11-story Palomar Health Medical Center in western Escondido opened for patient care on August 19, 2012.  

Palomar's experienced leadership team worked closely with Cisco during the designing of the new hospital, which broke ground in late 2007. The goal was to help health care providers offer new levels of mobility and collaboration among caregivers, patients and families in a unique, healing environment. This means important patient information can be shared faster and more efficiently with the right caregiver, no matter their location or mobile device.  Patients also have more freedom to communicate, as they can stay connected to a guest WiFi network throughout the facility. Using this highly reliable, highly secure network allows Palomar to deploy multiple new patient and caregiver applications today, including alert management and EMR systems, and primes the hospital for any future technological developments.

Key Highlights:

• Cisco's switching and routing solutions help enable Palomar to enhance the reliability and uptime of critical hospital services and applications.  Applications include a next generation platform Palomar and Cisco designed from the ground up to provide physicians and caregivers highly secure, concurrent access to patient health information from a smart phone or tablet, and the ability to initiate real-time videoconferencing sessions from those devices to collaborate regarding care options with the care team.
• The Cisco Wired and Wireless network also allows Palomar to provide full Internet access to patients, visitors and clinicians both inside and outside the hospital.
• Cisco collaboration technologies, including Cisco Unified Communications and WebEx have been implemented across Palomar's new hospital facility to improve the organizational capability and capacity to communicate, while converging distinct networks (data, voice, and videoconferencing) for better performance and manageability. 
• The Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone system, which combines video and voice capabilities, enables greater collaboration among mobile caregivers and their patients. Physicians and nurses can more efficiently reach each other from anywhere across the hospital, be contacted by patients directly from the bedside, and receive signals from other peripheral systems – for example to receive notifications that a lab test is ready.
• Palomar also implemented Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), which combines compute, networking, storage access and virtualization in a cohesive system. This allows the hospital to virtualize its server platforms, significantly reducing the number of servers needed across the organization as it expands.  With this highly efficient, scalable data center solution, compute power is only used when an application requires it, increasing efficiencies and reducing IT costs.

Supporting Quotes: 

Orlando Portale, chief innovation officer at Palomar Health   

"Cisco's advanced infrastructure and collaboration solutions are a key enabler for many of our innovation programs.  This includes the infrastructure to enable next generation mobile wireless tracking, remote robotics, biometric person identification, and automated medication dispensing, to name a few. Our partnership with Cisco will enable us to translate new ideas into real world opportunities that help drive improvements in patient care and operational efficiencies."

Dr. Ben Kanter, chief medical information officer at Palomar Health

"The ability Cisco provides to tie everyone in the hospital together – patients, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, infection control, administrative teams - through a security optimized, mobile and video-enabled environment, will have significant, positive impact across the healthcare continuum. Now patients have greater freedoms within the hospital, without compromising their health, as they are observed both inside and outside of hospital walls. And the ability for our doctors to review patient information from a mobile device, and conference in a nurse and a specialist at the same time to discuss the case, will completely change patient care."

Mike Haymaker, healthcare business manager at Cisco

"Palomar Health is raising the bar in the integration of several technologies, such as voice, video and collaboration, to improve clinical workflow processes.  Like Palomar, Cisco is keenly focused on helping to enable an exceptional care experience for patients and their families, as well as for the clinicians who deliver that care. It's not what we make, but what we make possible. And, our work with Palomar is a great example."

Additional Resources:

• For further information regarding Palomar Health and its new medical center, please visit: http://www.palomarhealth.org/
• Cisco Video: Palomar, Hospital of the Future: http://youtu.be/wL-d7MKjp4w
• Cisco Solutions: Cisco Unified Communications, TelePresence, WebEx, Unified Computing System
• Follow Cisco on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube

Tags/Keywords: Collaboration, Healthcare, Palomar Health, Cisco, Unified Communications, TelePresence, WebEx, Unified Computing System, Medical-grade Network

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About Palomar Health

Palomar Health is the largest public health-care district by area in California and the most comprehensive health care delivery system in northern San Diego County. It is governed by a publicly-elected board of directors and its primary service area in Inland North San Diego County has more than 500,000 residents. A Magnet® recognized health system, Palomar Health has several facilities, including the new Palomar Medical Center and Palomar Health Downtown Campus in Escondido and Pomerado Hospital in Poway, skilled nursing facilities in both cities, Palomar Health expresscare health centers in Escondido, Rancho Penasquitos, San Elijo Hills in San Marcos and Temecula (Riverside County) and a health clinic currently under construction in Ramona. Palomar Health provides medical services in virtually all fields of medicine, including primary care, heart care, emergency services, trauma, cancer, orthopedics, women's health, rehabilitation, robotic surgery and bariatric surgery.

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