Ultrasound Service Tips: IT Network Design

Ultrasound Service Tips: IT Network Design

 

 

Ultrasound systems are moving from traditional hardware systems to software driven devices. Clinical engineers need to understand the importance of a proper IT network design for your ultrasound systems.

 

First, what is an IT network design? A network design is a layout of your ultrasound systems and the IT network(s) they are associated with. A detailed network design document will identify the ultrasound unit(s) and the DICOM server(s) that coincide with them. The necessary information captured in a network design document is typically: server, server type, IP address, AE title, port number, etc.

 

Why do you need to know all this information to get your ultrasound systems running? First, we need to understand that the ultrasound repairs we are about undertake are a hybrid of traditional board specific and computer based repairs.  If we don’t understand the IT network design for all our ultrasound equipment, we may not be able to reconnect your system to the proper network for full and complete operation.

 

When an ultrasound system goes down most often it removes itself from the network. Once a system is off the network there is no repair that can be done to reconnect the system without knowing the necessary network information, sometimes this is stored on a preset disk but often the disk is not up to date. This is exactly why having all the necessary IT network design information for your ultrasound equipment is vital to sustained ultrasound equipment uptime.

 

If we complete a repair but can’t reconnect the machine to the network then the machine is useless to the person administering an exam. In many cases the physicians that need to review the image is not on site and must have access to critical information via the facility’s IT network.

 

If you have the network design information handy you are able to quickly retrieve necessary software reloads, quickly troubleshoot issues, and ultimately direct your ultrasound machine to the network to get the ultrasound system functional again. All these items lead to reduced repair costs, increased uptime and proper patient diagnosis.

 

To recap, lacking information about your network design could lead to:

 

Let’s get started setting up your network design.

 

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This article on "Ultrasound Service Tips: IT Network Design" was originally posted on axessultrasound.com.