WIDE-AREA NETWORK CONNECTING A HOSPITAL DRUG INFORMATICS CENTER WITH A UNIVERSITY

A wide-area network (WAN) connecting a new drug informatics center in a university-affiliated hospital with the university's campus-based co mputer network is described. In 1994 a pharmacy school developed a dru g informatics center in an affiliated hospital. The center was origina lly designed around a local-area network (LAN) to be located at the ho spital and planned to provide clients with easy access to typical prod uctivity software and various electronic information resources. Only o ccasional modem connections to the university network were envisioned. However, large price increases in information retrieval systems and d ecreases in the cost of a frame relay connection (T1 line) to the camp us network led to the installation of a WAN when the drug informatics center was established. Technical, political, and legal problems were overcome, and the connection was made. The WAN gave faculty and studen ts at the hospital access to many of the university's computing and In ternet resources. In addition, the faculty and students have access to various files and programs available only on the drug informatics cen ter's file server at the affiliated hospital. It cost about $6500 to i nstall all WAN equipment and maintain the frame relay for the first ye ar, or a third of what would have been necessary for information retri eval software had a separate LAN been established at the hospital. A W AN connecting a drug informatics center and a university's computer ne twork gave the center access to more electronic information resources at lower cost than would have been possible with a separate LAN.