Use Case Study Of St. Luke's Health Care System

In today’s fast paced healthcare environment, hospitals must invest in emerging technologies to improve patient outcomes, maintain regulatory compliance and sustain financial viability. St. Luke’s Health Care System, like many other healthcare institutions has made focused efforts to enhance technology to improve clinical workflows, operational efficiencies and security compliance. This use case study examines the technology used to enhance wireless networking architecture, mobile communication, and HIPAA security compliance.
Healthcare organizations are commonly faced with data communication challenges that can impact clinical workflow and patient care. Several healthcare organizations have found significant benefits with the implementation

Healthcare organizations that have encountered penalties due to HIPAA security breaches include; a $1.7 million fine in 2013 to WellPoint, and $4.8 million fine in 2014 to New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University for allowing ePHI to be accessible on Google (McCann).
In 2013, a Becker Hospital Review from a well-respected healthcare periodical provided notable guidelines for HIPPA compliance as follows (Vaidya):
1. Development of privacy policies: Privacy and security policies and procedure must be adopted and enforced including actions items in the event of a breach.

2. Appointment of privacy and security officers: Privacy and security officers must serve as experts for all HIPAA regulations and policies.

3. Conducting regular risk assessments: Risk assessments must be used to identify vulnerabilities to help ensure the confidentiality and integrity of protected health information, and create remediation plans to minimize risk.

4. Adoption of email policies: Policies must be established regarding mobile devices and email communication. Encrypt email containing PHI when

The networking architecture used to support communication is comprised of hardware, software, connectivity and communication protocols. In an effort to enhance networking communications, St. Luke’s Health Care System improved the reliability of the LAN (Local Area Network) by upgrading hardware and implementing advanced software. St. Luke’s would greatly benefit from the use of VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) configurations to optimize networking communications. A VLAN is a function of a layer 2 networking switch that allows a single LAN to be separated into logical or segregated LANs. A typical VLAN configuration efficiencies by allowing specified physical network ports on a switch to directly communicate with network ports on the same switch. A VLAN has the ability to configure network traffic rules that restrict communication between network devices that support similar functions or departments. The configuration and isolation of network traffic optimizes bandwidth performance, as well as provide a layer of security that is critical in a healthcare setting. Further enhancements of the networking infrastructure can be done by expanding VLAN’s across floors or buildings using layer 3 switches to reduce congestion. Another approach to network optimization that may benefit St. Luke’s is to logically separate the network architecture into many VLANs according to their network