Renown Health Upgrades Network with Cisco

Streamlining network management to accelerate digital transformation

The Renown Health network is managed and maintained using Cisco Catalyst Center. It is the key to driving AI-based automation, strengthening security, and establishing a singular view of network activity. It enables a team of three to manage a consistent network across 70 locations, 1400 access points, and 48,000 ports.

"Cisco Catalyst Center is like having a Network Operations Center technician 24/7. Essentially, it's a NOC-in-a-box," Metteer explains. Alerts go to various teams when there's a problem, and Level 2 engineers get the information they need to troubleshoot. "And suddenly," he says, "we have the information we need and can transition from reactive to proactive support."

Device proliferation prompts upgrade

Cisco Catalyst Center is also key to the planning and rollout of Renown Health's wireless upgrade. Renown Health had been a longtime user of Cisco Aironet access points, but the dramatic rise in users and devices simply demanded an upgrade.

"Admittedly, we were initially hesitant around Wi-Fi 6. Healthcare is not traditionally an early adopter of bleeding-edge technology," says Metteer. "Cisco explained to us that we'd have their full support."

With the future in mind, Renown Health has committed to Wi-Fi 6, with Cisco Catalyst 9120 and 9130 Access Points and Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controllers. An upgrade to Cisco Catalyst 9000 switches then drives everything from the edge to the core. Together, the Catalyst wired and wireless solutions help the business to accelerate the adoption of new digital touchpoints, from surgical robots to asset tracking.

"We now have a bunch of 40 [gigabit] uplinks in our Catalyst switches, and we're looking at 100 and 200 [gigabit]. This gives us a dramatic increase in capacity at a time when nearly everyone coming to our sites wants to connect three devices to the network," he explains.

Working from an accurate map of network activity

The impact of Cisco Catalyst Center has been nothing short of transformational. "We can simply log into Cisco Catalyst Center and it takes us five minutes to do what used to take hours," Metteer explains. 

Cisco Catalyst Center gives Renown Health industry-leading visibility and control with AI capabilities that help reduce configuration times, improve troubleshooting, and decrease operational complexities. "The level of detail we're able to see now in a network map is incredible," he adds.

Managing the network with Cisco Catalyst Center has slashed the time and effort needed to run the network and perform upgrades. Upgrades are now timed to apply to specific network users or segments with no interruption in service, which is critical in a healthcare setting. "With Catalyst Center automation tools, I set up 20 locations in a night, all from my desk. Taking a week's worth of work and doing it after hours in a single night is a dream come true," says Metteer.

IT team welcomes 94 percent reduction in troubleshooting time

With the help of Cisco Catalyst Center, average network troubleshooting time has gone from four hours to 10 to 15 minutes—a 94 percent reduction in time spent. Time saved is now spent on more important IT priorities. In addition, the IT team is typically 20 minutes ahead of the help desk. Even before a ticket is submitted, the team is proactively troubleshooting and speeding the time to resolution.

The time savings are not just restricted to the network team. An integration with Stanley Healthcare and Cisco Spaces enables Renown Health to automatically monitor temperature settings for blood and medicine storage and refrigeration. Manual temperature validation transitions to automatic alerts should temperatures fall outside requirements. It means that nurses are now more productive, and the risk to precious blood and medicine inventory is reduced.

Automating hourly refrigeration review and documentation brings savings

"Previously this was a manual job, with a nurse going around hourly checking and documenting each refrigeration unit and storage area," Metteer points out. "Now, sensor data is fed to a dashboard view. The time saving is equivalent to one full-time traveling nurse."

Cisco Spaces, he adds, is an example of the ideal use of technology in the service of human healthcare, and it is becoming an increasingly significant part of Renown Health's operations. Cisco Spaces allows teams to track the movement of people and things. This includes a range of medical devices, from gurneys and IV pumps to Apple iPhones that caregivers carry. Smart Workspaces from Cisco Spaces helps patients navigate to appointments.

Renown Health bought hundreds of Apple iPads for patients, recognizing that a comfortable patient is a better patient. "A patient can now happily stream a movie rather than looking at an IV in his arm," says Metteer.

The iPhones that caregivers use and iPads that patients rely on for entertainment and communication all communicate reliably with the Cisco Network. This is a result of tight collaboration between Cisco and Apple that optimizes connectivity, prioritizes latency sensitive apps with Fastlane+, and even provides Renown with device level analytics to streamline troubleshooting efforts.

The upgrade to Wi-Fi 6, he says, has tripled the network speed while adding the headroom to accommodate more devices.

"Instead of reacting to situations, we're proactive," he says. "We can send the support guys to the exact place to fix a specific problem. I cannot believe the level of detail we get from Cisco Catalyst Center. Anything is searchable. Cisco Catalyst Center is catching things that our other monitoring tools are missing."

"If you asked me five years ago, I would have said that there was no way a team of three could run a network of this size."