CAT 6 prescribed for hospital: video network carries television signals from the IDF closets to patient rooms.

Dwight Erdmann calls it "patch and add," because all he has to do is connect a TV to the Category 6 network and it is ready to go. Delivering television on Category 6 cable is one of many leading-edge technologies used by patients, visitors and staff at the new St. Clare's Hospital in Weston, Wis., where Erdmann is the communications planning analyst. "It's really convenient to have everything running on a single network," he says.

The 107-bed facility was one of the first hospitals in the nation designed with an all-digital network, including a chartless patient information system, and campus-wide wireless telecommunications and data systems. Patients can turn on the 23-inch flat screen monitor near their bed to learn about their conditions and the medications they are taking.

Patients can also order movies on demand, view programming on more than 20 entertainment and news channels, go online to send and receive e-mails, and watch instructions for post-hospitalization care. Today, one of the most important tools for physicians at St. Clare's is Wi-Fi-enabled tablet PCs, because the traditional patient chart or clipboard is part of the past.

The hospital opened in October 2005 and is part of Milwaukee-based Ministry Health Care, which operates a network of 15 hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, home care agencies, dialysis centers, and other programs and services in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

A major goal in designing the hospital was to operate all TV programming, information technologies and telecommunications systems over a single, converged network, according to Jeff Lee, senior telecommunications designer at Hammel, Green and Abrahamson (HGA). "One of the new capabilities that St. Clare's wanted was a state-of-the-art television distribution system, either an RF signal over unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable, or possibly Internet protocol TV," he explains.

With this in mind, HGA specified Category 6 cable to carry television signals from the intermediate distribution frame (IDF) closets to patient rooms. HGA also recommended a Lynx video network from Lynx Broadband, as the centerpiece of St. Clare's television distribution system. "We recommended Lynx because you can run it over traditional cabling that's used for data," Lee says.

HAVE JACK. CAN CONNECT

According to Erdmann, "The flexibility with CAT 6 is just phenomenal. Any place we have a data jack, we can have a TV set there, too."

The main source of programming is a satellite service, with the high-frequency signals traveling over coax cable from the dish on the roof to the head end on the top floor, where equipment remodulates it to lower-frequency RF channels. These channels travel over RG-11 cable to 20 IDF closets where Lynx equipment is located.

St. Clare's has 15 eight-port and nine 16-port Lynx hubs, which have the capacity to deliver television signals to 264 monitors. One port on each hub delivers a signal to one TV set via one CAT 6 cable. At the point of use, a small Lynx converter changes the television signals back to coaxial form for delivery to the TV set. St. Clare's has 184 single-port converters and the capacity to add 80 more when needed.

"We get good, sharp pictures on the 23-inch flat screen TVs in all the patient rooms and on 27-inch TVs in patient waiting rooms," says Erdmann, who is part of St. Clare's IT staff of 12 employees, and oversees and troubleshoots the hospital's TV and video operations, as well as the nurse-call system, pocket pagers, wireless and hardwired phone services. "The signal is as good or better than we could get with coax. We also have TVs in the ER department, birth center, diagnostic and treatment center, and lobbies.

"Anywhere there is a data jack, we can plug in a TV set and have a picture on the screen in minutes," he continues. "Besides the convenience and time savings, there is no extra cost for wiring another jack or installing another type of cable network in the building."

Lee and his colleagues at HGA were well into telecom planning and design for St. Clare's in the fall of 2003 when they attended a meeting of the North Central Electrical League. A presentation by Lynx Broadband introduced them to the concept of delivering television on twisted-pair cable, which would move them closer to an all-digital network. After additional research, Lynx was recommended to St. Clare's and Ministry Health Care, and Get Well Network (GWN), a provider of interactive patient care services.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., GWN automates clinical and non-clinical processes with its PatientPathways architecture, which streamlines and automates a hospital's day-to-day patient care processes. Pathways lets patients learn about their medical conditions and treatments, collaborate with caregivers, and access the Internet-all from their hospital beds.

GWN was concerned about signal strength and picture quality for channels delivered over distances. Channel capacity was especially important to GWN, since its service would add 10 channels, including six movie channels, to the 20 channels coming in from the satellite.

These concerns were not a problem, as the Lynx product can deliver a quality signal up to 300 feet on a CAT 6 cable. Since the IDF closets are an average of 150 feet from patient rooms, distances for TV signals to travel were well within limits.

There was also the misperception that Lynx was a "baseband" system with limited abilities to carry many channels. Lynx utilizes true broadband technology, it was explained, and is capable of delivering 70 channels to each TV in the hospital. The group decided to go with Lynx and GWN.

"Lynx has certainly met all of my expectations," offers Lee. "However, you've got to think a little differently when designing a Lynx network, because it requires a stronger signal than a traditional trunk-and-tap coax system. We were told about this up front and how it could be solved with larger amplifiers at the head end."

"There is a little more initial cost to buying and installing a Lynx system, but it isn't significant," Lee adds. The Lynx video network at St. Clare's cost about $45,000, compared to $40,000 for a conventional coax system.

"However, when compared to the overall telecom cabling infrastructure for the entire hospital, which was around a half million dollars, the additional $5,000 is quite small," he explains. The total cost included the satellite dish and equipment, all CAT 6 cable and jacks, equipment racks in each of the 20 IDF closets, racks and cable trays in the data center, Lynx equipment, installation and testing.

"It never really came down to cost on this project," Lee continues. "Rather, it came down to performance and functionality. Most building owners will recoup those extra costs in a hurry by avoiding the installation of any coax in the future."

Erdmann agrees. "I was approached a while ago by one of our sister hospitals that wanted to renovate and put in a coax system. I said if you're planning for the future, why not install CAT 6 now, in order to be prepared for future technologies that will run on CAT 6 cable, like Internet protocol TV."