This year at Cisco Live in Melbourne, we were lucky enough to visit St. Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne to get an overview of the hospital’s IT strategy and to see some of the technology in action.  Simon Richardson, the CIO for St Vincent’s Health Melbourne, and his team talked us through the hospital’s three main initiatives:

Providing Anywhere, Anytime Access for Physicians with Quick Connect

• St. Vincent’s is providing “Physician Mobility” to its medical staff with Quick Connect. With a quick tap of a card, medical staff have immediate access to clinical applications from 600 desktops and Computers on Wheels (COWS) throughout the hospital. Based on the Cisco Unified Computing System, Quick Connect means that multiple staff can access records at the same time across the hospital’s multiple sites. Staff only need to log on once at the start of the day and can then simply tap their card for subsequent log-ins, wherever they may be. With staff logging on to computers 50 to 60 times a day, this is a huge time savings.

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At Cisco Live in Melbourne last week we hosted a customer showcase panel (see photos here) for attending press and analysts. Alongside St Andrew’s hospital, an Adelaide-based private hospital, and Relationships Australia WA, a not-for-profit which has rolled out Cisco collaboration kit, the IT Operations Manager from Country Fire Authority (CFA), Gary Phillips, discussed the roll-out of a Cisco UCS based data centre platform.

In a country where threat to property and life from bushfires is a major concern every summer, it is important that the men and women tasked to protect us are equipped with the best and most advanced technology available to them. The CFA is the state of Victoria’s dedicated rural fire brigade.

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A dominant theme for the mobile networking industry at this year’s Mobile World Congress was how to cope with exploding demand for mobile data. Part of the answer is new technology but part is better spectrum policy.

Network operators today are facing a stiff challenge to expand infrastructure to keep pace with data traffic growth as more consumers stream HD video on their mobile devices and businesses employ collaboration tools to increase productivity.  As a result, service providers are working harder than ever to manage their networks and scarce spectrum by deploying high quality small cell Wi-Fi in combination with traditional macro cell base stations. This is the “heterogenous network” or Het Net.

Just a few years ago, Read More »

Tags: john chambers, mobile, mobile data, mobile internet, mobile world congress, mwc 2013, Robert Pepper, Service Provider, wi-fi

Australian mobile data traffic will increase sixfold between 2012 and 2017, reaching 0.075 exabytes. Meanwhile, New Zealand mobile data traffic will increase eightfold in the same period.

These were the key findings from our latest Global Mobile Visual Networking Index (VNI), an ongoing initiative to predict global traffic growth, which were presented last week at Cisco Live in Melbourne by Dr. Robert Pepper, Cisco’s vice president for global technology policy (see slide presentation here).

Dr. Pepper identified four trends driving this data consumption growth: more users, more devices per user, faster network speeds and more media-rich content.

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Adelaide-based St Andrew’s hospital is one of the most progressive medical facilities in the world consistently leading in new technology adoption. Most recently, St Andrews decided to move to a Cisco Medical-Grade Network (MGN) to continue the development of its digital future. The Cisco MGN is an end-to-end networking framework designed to support any application and any device. The hospital has also rolled-out a Cisco VoIP platform to enhance communication between nurses, doctors and patients.

In an announcement at Cisco Live in Melbourne last week, St. Andrew’s announced partnering with KPMG and Data Mobility Voice to deploy a network including Cisco Catalyst® 3750-X Series Switches in the core, distribution and edge to support IP telephony and digital theatre environments. The technology roll-out is extensive and stretches well beyond one hospital building. The Cisco MGN encompasses areas such as campus networks, clinics, remote clinicians, and data centres.

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