Success Story
Networks cleverly documented
Network documentation and cable management at Klinikum Stuttgart
Cora Rosenkranz
Wordfinder Ltd. & Co KG in Hamburg
Success Story
Networks cleverly documented
Network documentation and cable management at Klinikum Stuttgart
Making IT and telecommunications infrastructure in hospitals crisis-proof
Project CLEAN: Revision and documentation of the ICT cabinets at the Stuttgart Clinic
As a maximum care facility, the Stuttgart Clinic must meet the highest medical and organizational standards. This applies in particular to the IT and telecommunications infrastructure. When restructuring and documenting this security-sensitive area, the clinic is relying on innovative and flexible technologies that will guarantee transparent and structured administration for the future.
With more than 50 clinics and institutes in 52 buildings at two main locations and various secondary locations, the Stuttgart Clinic is the largest hospital in Baden-Württemberg. The complex organization, which employs 7,000 people, is also reflected in the IT and communications infrastructure, because the importance of these technologies has also meant that the physical infrastructure has grown rapidly over the past 30 years and now includes 190 ICT rooms with 350 ICT cabinets.
As in many large organizations, the Stuttgart Clinic has developed too many variants in the ICT cabinets over time. Changing service providers have laid patch cables according to different systems. The same applied to the documentation, which was carefully prepared using Excel tables, but due to its complexity, was no longer really easy to handle in this form in a clear and efficient manner. In addition, in this particular case, four independent hospitals were merged to form what is now the Stuttgart Clinic, all of which worked with their own service providers, concepts and systems.
Care-relevant facilities are subject to special standards
It is obvious that such a situation increases the susceptibility to errors, promotes ambiguity and ultimately costs valuable working time. The second important reason for the restructuring of the ICT cabinets is KRITIS, the guideline of the Federal Offices for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and for Information Security (BSI) for the protection of critical infrastructures. This guideline defines strict requirements that are intended to ensure the functionality of supply-relevant organizations and facilities, even in crisis situations. Compliance with the KRITIS guidelines is checked in regular audits.
Documentation and access control are decisive for the success and sustainability of a restructuring.
In order to ensure a clearly organized structure of the entire IT and telecommunications infrastructure for the future, the IT service center of the Stuttgart Clinic started the CLEAN project. This project includes
- the cleaning of the ICT cabinets, i.e. the creation of uniform cable routing, color coding and reasonable lengths of the patch cables, the replacement of cable ties with Velcro and the labeling of each patch cable on both sides with a unique ID
- the documentation of all ICT cabinets and rooms
- the assembly and installation of an access control system
- the installation of a control system for access authorizations
- the installation of temperature sensors
- the installation of a monitoring system for door alarm contacts and temperature sensors
- the instruction of the service providers, including the creation of an operating manual
Professional documentation and effective access control are crucial for the sustainability of these measures. Effective control of the networks can only be guaranteed if every component can be easily and safely identified and precisely located at any time. Of course, this also means that every access must be centrally controlled in order to record every change in the documentation.
The quality of the implementation partner is just as important as the quality of the software
To restructure the documentation, the IT team opted for the connection manager VM.7 from AT+C EDV GmbH. The professional information and planning software for networks, building cabling, cable management and the administration of all IT components and connections combines the geographical order of a building plan with the logical order of a database. When selecting our new documentation and planning software, various criteria were decisive for us, says project manager Gernot Grams from the IT Service Center at the Stuttgart Clinic. In addition to the clear structure and technical performance, future viability was also an important issue for us, as we plan to develop our project further and, for example, implement Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) in the medium term. The aim was to implement AIM even in the planning phase, but this failed due to budget constraints. Nevertheless, we want to keep the option of being able to introduce AIM in the future.
It was also clear to us from the start that we needed a solution and a partner that were flexible enough to enable individual customization. We would not have been able to meet our complex requirements with a purely standard solution. The importance of the flexibility mentioned was shown, for example, in the networking of documentation and access control. The data from Apranet's EMI-One access control system should be automatically recorded in the VM.7 documentation. AT+C developed a special interface for this connection that makes it possible to incorporate user management, status queries and updates from EMI-One directly into the documentation and to control access authorizations centrally via the VM.7.
About AT+C
The Oberursel-based company AT+C has been concentrating on the development of infrastructure management solutions for more than 30 years. With their connection manager VM.7, the network management experts were able to establish the consistency of graphic representation and all attributes in the database right from the beginning of digitalization, thus providing an outstanding level of clarity and clarity to this day.
Another cornerstone of AT+C EDV GmbH's long-term success is the strong focus on targeted and practice-oriented project implementation. This includes in particular the consideration of individual customer requests, which can be implemented without complex reprogramming thanks to the flexible software architecture, as well as intensive on-site support up to go-live and beyond. The majority of customers who first chose AT+C Software more than 10 years ago or more are still loyal and satisfied customers of an overall solution that has been continuously developed over the years.
Author: Cora Rosenkranz
Image source: Klinikum Stuttgart
Making IT and telecommunications infrastructure in hospitals crisis-proof
Project CLEAN: Revision and documentation of the ICT cabinets at the Stuttgart Clinic
As a maximum care facility, the Stuttgart Clinic must meet the highest medical and organizational standards. This applies in particular to the IT and telecommunications infrastructure. When restructuring and documenting this security-sensitive area, the clinic is relying on innovative and flexible technologies that will guarantee transparent and structured administration for the future.
With more than 50 clinics and institutes in 52 buildings at two main locations and various secondary locations, the Stuttgart Clinic is the largest hospital in Baden-Württemberg. The complex organization, which employs 7,000 people, is also reflected in the IT and communications infrastructure, because the importance of these technologies has also meant that the physical infrastructure has grown rapidly over the past 30 years and now includes 190 ICT rooms with 350 ICT cabinets.
As in many large organizations, the Stuttgart Clinic has developed too many variants in the ICT cabinets over time. Changing service providers have laid patch cables according to different systems. The same applied to the documentation, which was carefully prepared using Excel tables, but due to its complexity, was no longer really easy to handle in this form in a clear and efficient manner. In addition, in this particular case, four independent hospitals were merged to form what is now the Stuttgart Clinic, all of which worked with their own service providers, concepts and systems.
Care-relevant facilities are subject to special standards
It is obvious that such a situation increases the susceptibility to errors, promotes ambiguity and ultimately costs valuable working time. The second important reason for the restructuring of the ICT cabinets is KRITIS, the guideline of the Federal Offices for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and for Information Security (BSI) for the protection of critical infrastructures. This guideline defines strict requirements that are intended to ensure the functionality of supply-relevant organizations and facilities, even in crisis situations. Compliance with the KRITIS guidelines is checked in regular audits.
Documentation and access control are decisive for the success and sustainability of a restructuring.
In order to ensure a clearly organized structure of the entire IT and telecommunications infrastructure for the future, the IT service center of the Stuttgart Clinic started the CLEAN project. This project includes
- the cleaning of the ICT cabinets, i.e. the creation of uniform cable routing, color coding and reasonable lengths of the patch cables, the replacement of cable ties with Velcro and the labeling of each patch cable on both sides with a unique ID
- the documentation of all ICT cabinets and rooms
- the assembly and installation of an access control system
- the installation of a control system for access authorizations
- the installation of temperature sensors
- the installation of a monitoring system for door alarm contacts and temperature sensors
- the instruction of the service providers, including the creation of an operating manual
Professional documentation and effective access control are crucial for the sustainability of these measures. Effective control of the networks can only be guaranteed if every component can be easily and safely identified and precisely located at any time. Of course, this also means that every access must be centrally controlled in order to record every change in the documentation.
The quality of the implementation partner is just as important as the quality of the software
Zur Neustrukturierung der Dokumentation entschied sich das IT-Team für den Verbindungs-Manager VM.7 der AT+C EDV GmbH. Die professionelle Informations- und Planungssoftware für Netzwerke, Gebäudeverkabelung, Kabelmanagement und die Verwaltung aller IT-Komponenten und -Beschaltungen verbindet die geografische Ordnung eines Gebäudeplanes mit der logischen Ordnung einer Datenbank. Bei der Auswahl unserer neuen Dokumentations- und Planungssoftware waren für uns verschiedene Kriterien entscheidend, so Projektleiter Gernot Grams vom Servicecenter IT am Klinikum Stuttgart. Neben der übersichtlichen Struktur und der technischen Leistungsfähigkeit war für uns auch die Zukunftsfähigkeit ein wichtiges Thema, da wir planen, unser Projekt weiter zu entwickeln und z.B. mittelfristig auch ein Automatisiertes Infrastruktur-Management (AIM) zu implementieren. Bereits In der Planungsphase war es das Ziel AIM zu implementieren, scheiterte aber am Budget. Dennoch wollen wir uns die Option für die Zukunft offenhalten AIM noch einführen zu können.
Außerdem war uns von Beginn an klar, dass wir eine Lösung und einen Partner brauchen, die flexibel genug sind, individuelle Anpassungen zu ermöglichen. Mit einer reinen Standardlösung wären wir unseren komplexen Anforderungen nicht gerecht geworden. Wie wichtig die angesprochene Flexibilität war, zeigte sich zum Beispiel bei der Vernetzung von Dokumentation und Zutrittskontrolle. Die Daten aus dem Zutrittskontrollsystem EMI-One von Apranet sollten automatisch in der VM.7 Dokumentation erfasst werden. Für diese Anbindung wurde von AT+C eine spezielle Schnittstelle entwickelt, die es ermöglicht, Benutzerverwaltung, Statusabfrage und Updates der EMI-One direkt in die Dokumentation einfließen zu lassen und die Zutrittsberechtigungen zentral über den VM.7 zu steuern.
About AT+C
The Oberursel-based company AT+C has been concentrating on the development of infrastructure management solutions for more than 30 years. With their connection manager VM.7, the network management experts were able to establish the consistency of graphic representation and all attributes in the database right from the beginning of digitalization, thus providing an outstanding level of clarity and clarity to this day.
Another cornerstone of AT+C EDV GmbH's long-term success is the strong focus on targeted and practice-oriented project implementation. This includes in particular the consideration of individual customer requests, which can be implemented without complex reprogramming thanks to the flexible software architecture, as well as intensive on-site support up to go-live and beyond. The majority of customers who first chose AT+C Software more than 10 years ago or more are still loyal and satisfied customers of an overall solution that has been continuously developed over the years.
Author: Cora Rosenkranz
Image source: Klinikum Stuttgart
