EVOLUTION OF HOSPITAL COMMUNICATION-SYSTEMS TOWARDS MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS

A study of the communication requirements and a detailed analysis of t he network infrastructure necessary to efficiently support multimedia applications in a typical mid-range general hospital is presented. The study focuses on the consequences that the introduction of multimedia objects has on existing interconnected networks and has been based on the analysis of the performance of installed interconnected local are a networks within a distributed medical database environment. Particul ar attention has been paid to the problems related to the introduction of multimedia technology in inter-hospital communication systems. The results of a number of tests undertaken in a real-life hospital envir onment on the transfer of objects simulating multimedia information in interconnected IEEE 802.3 networks are also presented and discussed. Various computational environment scenarios have been considered for t his purpose. The operational parameters of the network have been measu red in detail. The results obtained and their interpretation are used for the analysis of the problems that appear. A number of alternative ways for managing multimedia objects within hospital information syste ms are presented. Finally the security requirements of such a system a re briefly discussed.