HCIS 352 Week 2 Healthcare Information System Infrastructure Example

Building the Floor Under the Software: An Infrastructure Plan for a New Multispecialty Clinic, From Network and Power to Cloud Connections and Recovery

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

HCIS/352: Foundations of it in the Health Care Environment

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The clinic, its design and its costs are composites written for a model paper; guidance and findings come from the sources listed.

A health system is opening a 40,000-square-foot multispecialty clinic with 60 exam rooms, a small imaging suite, a laboratory draw station, a retail pharmacy and space for 180 staff. All clinical and business applications will be hosted either in the health system's data center or by cloud vendors; nothing clinical will run on servers inside the building. That makes the clinic's infrastructure, the physical and network foundation beneath the software, the thing most likely to decide whether care can continue on a bad day. Sittig and Singh (2020) argued that the pandemic exposed how much health care depends on information infrastructure that was never designed as a whole; this clinic is a chance to design one from the start. This paper plans it layer by layer.

What the Infrastructure Must Support

On a typical day the clinic will see 700 patients. Clinicians will use the EHR on exam-room workstations and tablets, the imaging suite will send studies to the health system's image archive, the pharmacy will run its dispensing system, and patients will check in on kiosks and use guest Wi-Fi. Phones, nurse call, security cameras and door badges also ride the network. Every one of these depends on the layers below, and none of them can simply wait for a repair.

Layer 1: Connections to the Outside

Because applications live elsewhere, the clinic's links to the health system and the internet are critical. The plan uses two fiber circuits from different carriers entering the building through separate paths, so a single cut backhoe cannot isolate the clinic. Traffic is balanced across both, and either can carry the full load alone.

Layer 2: The Internal Network

The wired network uses redundant core switches and closets on each floor with backup power. Wireless coverage is designed for clinical mobility, with access points placed so tablets and badge phones do not drop in hallways or stairwells. The network is divided into segments: clinical workstations, medical devices such as imaging equipment and infusion pumps, building systems such as heating and cameras, and guest Wi-Fi. Traffic between segments is filtered. Segmentation means that malware on a visitor's laptop, or a vulnerability in a heating controller, cannot reach the imaging equipment or the workstations nurses use to give medications.

Layer 3: Power and Environment

Network closets and the small server room that holds local equipment, such as the phone system, have battery backup and are connected to the building's generator. Temperature sensors alert facilities staff if cooling fails.

Layer 4: End-User Devices

The clinic will deploy about 260 workstations, 90 tablets, 40 printers, kiosks and badge readers, all enrolled in the health system's device management so they can be updated, locked and wiped centrally. Exam-room workstations use badge tap login so clinicians can move between rooms without typing passwords.

Layer 5: Identity and Access

Every user signs in with an individual account. Multifactor authentication is required for remote access and administrative accounts, and privileged access is limited to named IT staff. Accounts are created and removed automatically from the human resources system, so a departing employee loses access the day they leave.

Layer 6: Backup and Recovery

Clinical data live in hosted systems with their own backups, but the clinic still needs recovery for local systems and a plan for losing connection. A cached read-only copy of the next day's schedules and recent medication lists is kept on two secured workstations, and downtime kits with paper forms sit at each nursing station.

Security Throughout

The design follows the Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices published by the Department of Health and Human Services' 405(d) program, which recommend practices such as email protection, endpoint protection, access management, network management, vulnerability management and incident response scaled to an organization's size (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023). These practices are built into each layer rather than purchased as a separate product.

Why Resilience Is Worth Paying For

Neprash et al. (2022) showed ransomware against American care providers growing sharply over six years, with close to half of the incidents interrupting patient care through outages, postponed visits or rerouted ambulances. A clinic that can keep seeing patients during an outage or attack protects both patients and revenue.

Medical Devices on the Network

Imaging equipment, infusion pumps, vital sign monitors and the pharmacy's dispensing robot are computers too, often running older operating systems that manufacturers update slowly. The plan inventories every connected device, places each on the medical device segment, restricts which systems it may talk to and asks each vendor for its security documentation and patch schedule before purchase. Devices that cannot be patched are isolated further. Because a compromised device could affect patient care directly, the biomedical engineering team and IT share responsibility for this layer.

Voice and Communication

Clinicians will use badge phones and secure messaging on the wireless network, and the nurse call system will send alerts to those phones. Voice traffic receives priority on the network so calls do not drop when many devices are busy, and the system keeps working inside the building even if outside connections fail, so staff can still reach each other during an outage.

Budget

Network equipment and wireless: $620,000. Dual carrier circuits: $4,000 a month. End-user devices: $540,000. Power protection for closets: $85,000. Security tools and device management licenses: $90,000 a year. Cabling and installation: $310,000. Commissioning and testing: $40,000.

Commissioning Checklist

Before opening, the team will test failover between carriers, walk every hallway with a tablet to confirm wireless coverage, verify that medical devices cannot reach the guest network, run a simulated internet outage with clinical staff using downtime procedures and confirm that departing test accounts lose access automatically.

Conclusion

A clinic whose software lives elsewhere depends entirely on its infrastructure. Redundant connections, a segmented and mobile-ready network, protected power, managed devices, strong identity controls, local recovery plans and security built in from the start give clinicians a floor they can trust.

References

Neprash, H. T., McGlave, C. C., Cross, D. A., Virnig, B. A., Puskarich, M. A., Huling, J. D., Rozenshtein, A. Z., & Nikpay, S. S. (2022). Trends in ransomware attacks on US hospitals, clinics, and other health care delivery organizations, 2016-2021. JAMA Health Forum, 3(12), Article e224873. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2022.4873

Sittig, D. F., & Singh, H. (2020). COVID-19 and the need for a national health information technology infrastructure. JAMA, 323(23), 2373-2374. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.7239

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2023). Health industry cybersecurity practices: Managing threats and protecting patients (2023 ed.). 405(d) Program. https://405d.hhs.gov/public/navigation/hicp