Siemens Helping Pella Regional Health Center

Environmental, Security, Life Safety and Communications systems tightly linked

Today's highly competitive healthcare environment depends on technology to deliver better care at lower cost without sacrificing patient outcomes. To help Pella Regional Health Center (PRHC) achieve this goal for its existing facility and new space now under construction, Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. was brought in early to consult and help guide facility systems design and implementation of all low-voltage systems. The result? A multi-million dollar project for implementing and upgrading building systems that include integrated information technology, security, environmental, communications and patient entertainment/education systems across a robust, system-wide enterprise network.

Pella Regional's management understands just how important a role technology plays in the healthcare environment and has been recognized for it. In the September, 2006 issue of Health Imaging & IT magazine, PRHC was honored as a "Top 25 Connected Healthcare Facility" for the great strides it has made in integrating medical imaging technology, its PACS (Picture Archiving Communication System) and its EMR (Electronic Medical Record) system. This award placed Pella Regional in the company of such prestigious medical institutions as Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center. These systems depend on a sophisticated, high bandwidth data highway--a key element of the project to be designed and installed by Siemens is a structured network cabling system that will enhance the performance of this critical patient care IT infrastructure.

According to Bob Kroese, CEO of Pella Regional, "The end result of all this technology is that the people of our community receive the same high quality care as the patients in the best hospitals in the country, and that is really something to celebrate."

The current building systems project is a logical next step in upgrading PRHC's technology as the hospital plans for future growth. "By bringing us into the project as a single source technology designer/contractor and at the earliest stages of planning, Pella Regional gains great value," says Frederick Lerouge, Siemens Building Technologies. "As a team with Pella Regional's staff, we have created an integrated, harmonized and efficient healthcare environment via technology. Our consultative and collaborative process allowed them to decide first how to best provide patient care, then to decide what combinations and integration of technologies would deliver a cost-competitive design to achieve their vision. Combining a well designed technology infrastructure with Pella Regional's great people and culture will inevitably deliver the highest quality of care."

In fact, the new structured cabling solution will employ the latest fiber optic cabling and switching technologies and form the tie that binds all the new low-voltage systems planned for the facility together. These key infrastructure systems span the operations of Pella Regional's entire facility. Each separate system plays an important role in the efficient operation of the hospital and the management of patient care.

As Pella Regional's technology partner, Siemens will provide a long list of technologies including communications systems such as the land line and wireless phone systems, a system that ensures cell phone coverage throughout the facility and the paging and the nurse call systems. Security and life safety systems are on the list and include the fire alarm, card access security, video surveillance and infant monitoring/protection systems. Next are infrastructure and management systems such as heating and cooling controls, the central clock system, time clocks and the data network cable system. Finally, Siemens will also provide network connectivity that supports Pella Regional's Nihon Koden patient monitoring system and a complete patient entertainment/education system.

Pella Regional Health Center, located in Pella, Iowa, was built in 1960, and its most recent major addition was finished in 1996. Pella's campus includes the main hospital, a medical office building and a long-term care facility. The two-story hospital encompasses approximately 189,000 square feet and houses a 25-bed critical access hospital and 128 licensed long-term care beds. The current construction and renovation project will add approximately 105,000 square feet of new space and feature the focused renovation and improvement of the existing facility's low-voltage systems.

Pella Regional Health Center is a not-for-profit provider of healthcare that is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Its mission is to provide healthcare and healing services with Christian compassion. Information on Pella Regional Health Center is available by calling Public Relations at 641-621-2290 or visiting the website, www.pellahealth.org.

By Siemens