Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) Institute

Overview

The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) Institute of Medical Sciences and Research is a new 1,500 bedded multi-specialty hospital and medical college, spanning across 18 levels with 22 departments. Its mission is to provide the best care through cutting-edge medical technology.

SVP is also the only hospital to have physiotherapy, medical, and nursing college on the same campus, with a separate hostel for boys and girls which can accommodate 550 students.

In a first-of-its-kind private-public partnership, Cisco and its trusted partner have helped SVP achieve its vision of being India’s first paperless government hospital and thus revolutionizing public healthcare.

[SVP will be the] first paperless and entirely computerized government hospital where medical staff will be empowered by mobile devices with instant, yet secure access to all patients’ medical records. The digital and tech infrastructure that underscores the functioning of the hospital is truly impressive. In fact, all addressable IP & IoT elements on premises on board will be connected to a digital blanket hub, accessible with a central dashboard—all on the cloud.

Vijay Nehra

AMC Commissioner

 

Customer challenge

The scale of SVP’s research hospital was unprecedented for India. Some of the key requirements for SVP included:

• Establish a stable and high-performance wireless network in a high-density location with significant channel interference
• A reliable network infrastructure that is able to scale according to the current and future needs of the hospital
• Improve bandwidth for high-resolution MRI images and large files needed by healthcare staff by selectively prioritizing traffic between location
• Enabling HIPAA-compliant networking, guest Wi-Fi, secure BYOD, and a seamless user experience
• Restrict access to devices secured by encryption, passcode, device feature, and credentials policies
• Allow hospital guests and patients to stay connected to loved ones with APs that securely isolate guest wireless traffic from the core network
  Improve overall wireless network security and preventing rouge SSID’s from hijacking the patient data

In addition, another challenge was to get the solution deployed in a very restricted timeline, as the institute’s opening was to be done by the Honorable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi.

…I will inaugurate the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. This is a state-of-the-art public hospital will provide top quality healthcare to the people of Gujarat.

Twitter post from India Prime Minister (@narendramodi)

 

The solution

With the vision to digitalize SVP’s overall operations, a few different competitor solutions had been evaluated but it wasn’t until the technology partner’s recommendation of Cisco Meraki’s next-generation wireless network, did SVP find the solution that would meet and exceed their expectations.

Over 500 Meraki wireless access points provided a unified digital experience and seamless roaming across the hospital facilities, rendering inter-department transactions paperless, with seamless mobile connectivity for faster decision making and better patient management.

Meraki’s cloud-based architecture provides centralized visibility and control, supporting staff, and intelligent infrastructure and digital devices with WiFi, switching, security and mobile device management from a single management screen – the Meraki dashboard.

All changes, big or small, can be made literally in minutes via the dashboard, to ease the overall operations. Seamless access, and granular visibility into the network & users, coupled with decreased operational cost, and increased operational efficiency was a win-win for the customer.

The Chief Executive Officer of our trusted partner proudly said that SVP is a
 “fully automated state of the art paperless hospital which integrates all the hospital functions seamlessly and provides maximum efficiency and productivity.”

The solution not only caters to the present needs but is also future ready to provide faster organic expansion. Having asset tracking and access to clinical data at the tip of their fingers was another big advantage this solution provided, completely out of the box.

The benefits include:

• Supports increasing demand and reliable mobile access requirements for PDA devices used by staff
• Enjoy end-to-end visibility and control of all clinic and medical campus networks from anywhere via an intuitive cloud-based dashboard
• 100% cloud-based architecture provides centralized visibility and control to supporting staff, patient and guest services with WiFi, switching, security and mobile device management from a single pane of glass
• Enforce fine-grained content filtering with Layer 7 traffic shaping; set rules for P2P, video, audio, and more
• Limit patient/guest wireless access to specific APs and for scheduled times of day with availability controls
• Meraki APs provide isolated Wi-Fi access for hospital guests and assisted living residents, enabling HIPAA compliance and integrated Hospital network
• Layer 7 traffic shaping lets IT prioritize EMR traffic accessed through the network
• BLE Enabled Wireless AP enables SVP hospital management to create multiple API for automation, attendance management, asset tracking and more
• Delivers an uninterrupted and high-performance network experience
• Improved user experience in a demanding and high-density environment, thanks to better anti-interference features

As the state-of-the-art healthcare facility, opens its doors for business, it not only marks a beginning of a hugely-successful PPP model but also opens possibilities for future collaborations between the private and public sector for the greater good of the people.