TMCnet News
Concord Hospital Employs Juniper Networks' Application Acceleration and Security Platforms(Wireless News Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Juniper Networks, a provider of high-performance networking, announced that it has been selected by Concord Hospital, a regional medical center in the state of New Hampshire, to provide a high-performance network infrastructure with application acceleration, routing, remote access and security solutions. The functional integration of the Juniper Networks WX application acceleration platform, Secure Services Gateway (SSG) firewall/VPN appliances with Unified Threat Management (UTM) and Secure Access (SA) 4000 SSL VPN enabled Concord Hospital to increase the performance of business-critical applications by 40 to 50 percent, secure wireless VoIP communications in its emergency department, and provide secure remote network access for employees using a standard Web browser. "In healthcare, the importance of secure, real-time access to applications goes well beyond the need to expedite employee productivity or quickly meet business requirements it literally can mean the difference between life and death," said Mark Starry, manager of IT infrastructure and security at Concord Hospital. "Like most high-performance businesses, we need to ensure our health professionals can work without network interruption, regardless of their location. Concord Hospital focuses on applying the newest medical science and technology to improve patient care and we view the network as a critical component for our organization in delivering exceptional service." As part of its effort to enable collaboration, Concord Hospital launched an IT initiative to consolidate a suite of clinical and administrative applications from its many healthcare centers, clinics and physician practices located across 11 locations. But the consolidation caused huge network latency for its web-based applications. To resolve this issue, Concord Hospital turned to Juniper's WX application acceleration platform, which was deployed without interruption to its network operations. With the Juniper Networks WXC 590 at the data center and WX 500s and WX 250s at 10 remote sites, Concord Hospital was able to provide application response across the WAN to provide physicians, clinicians and staff access to their applications, including electronic medical records, medical imaging, billing, document imaging and payroll. The hospital also uses the Juniper Networks SA 4000 SSL VPN to provide its health professionals with the ability to access applications securely anytime and anywhere using a standard Web browser. The SA 4000 provides remote access without needing infrastructure changes, DMZ deployments or software agents. This functionality also allows Concord Hospital to secure access to the corporate intranet and help sustain compliance with HIPAA requirements, which require the standardized protection of confidentiality and security of health data. "Concord Hospital has established itself as an innovative leader in terms of using a high-performance network infrastructure to directly improve quality of care and patient safety," said Mark Bauhaus, executive vice president and general manager of Service Layer Technologies at Juniper Networks. "With Juniper's best-in-class portfolio of routing, security and application acceleration technologies, the hospital has not only improved operational and cost efficiencies, but it has accelerated its competitive advantage by providing higher value exchanges between employees, partners and their patients." ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) ((Distributed on behalf of 10Meters via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com)) ((10Meters - http://www.10meters.com)) Copyright ? 2008 Wireless News |