This massive new hospital located along Ortigas Avenue in the business district of Pasig City is the largest in the Philippines. It serves some 40,000 inpatients and 380,000 outpatients a year within its two towers complete with rooftop helipad. Along with designated floors for medicine, surgery, obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics, it also includes a six-storey podium for diagnostic facilities and special services, an 18 storey medical arts tower containing 280 doctors’ clinics and three levels of parking for 1000 vehicles.

The Challenge
Even before The Medical City was fully built and operational, they already planned this vast hospital to be a technologically advanced institution. While the facilities were still undergoing construction, they were already thinking about how they were going to operate once the hospital was up and running. In order for them to achieve the superior healthcare that they wanted to offer, they set high standards for themselves. Reliability and security were the two main challenges facing The Medical City’s President and CEO, Dr. Alfredo R A Bengzon. He was looking for a supplier who would provide the data networking connectivity required to maintain the high level of operational efficiency necessary for providing critical patient care. The challenge was to implement a secure and reliable networking solution with optimum connectivity capable of carrying information services such as patient records and X-rays as well as sensitive laboratory results and other medical services information.

Solution
Trends & Technologies Inc. was already present as early as the construction phase of The Medical City. Trends served as their key consultant in the planning and design of their data network. Just like what doctors do with their patients, Trends gave them their diagnosis and the proper prescriptions. Trends provided them with the right solutions and in this case it was to supply and install the Nortel Ethernet Router Switch 8600s and Nortel Ethernet Switch 470s: complete, cost-effectivesolutions with 99.999 percent reliability, that provide ease of use, superior performance, availability and scalability, and capable of supporting voice, video and data.

Nortel and Trends have been partners in providing delivering quality network solutions to different enterprises for 10 years already. Trends is proud to be a Gold Partner of Nortel.

Benefit
Because of the newly installed technological solutions, they were able to make “Telemedicine” a reality. According to Dr. Bengzon, this means being able to shoot a digitised X-ray or scan from one floor to another or even push an MRI to a specialist at the intensive care unit as needed. Medical information is easily accessed regardless of one’s location.
“…the network is doing its job very well. It’s providing the reliability and security we wanted at the outset, plus very high levels of performance.” -Dr. Alfredo R A Bengzon,President and CEO of The Medical City