Shields Health Care Group, which offers MRI, PET/CT, and radiation therapy services in New England, is now using Comcast Business Ethernet and Internet services at its 36 locations throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, according to the service provider. Comcast Business points out in a statement that radiologists need the ability to quickly share files that range from 200 megabytes to 1 gigabyte in size between offices so each image is read and diagnosed as quickly as possible for patients and doctors.
“Our radiologists are our network monitoring system. We are notified immediately if there are any slow or non-working connections,” Chuck Spurr, CIO at Shields Health Care Group, says. “With our last provider, we had several issues with the network and customer service. Since we switched to Comcast Business, we have been able to double the speed of our transfers for faster image sharing and have the ability to quickly expand our network to new healthcare partners in a matter of days.”
The Shields IT team reportedly implemented Ethernet Network Service from Comcast Business with up to 100 Mbps of capacity that expedites the transfer of the data-heavy imaging files at 20 of its largest healthcare partners. The remaining 16 providers access the Shields network through Comcast Business Internet services. An additional 10 Gbps port is at the company’s main data center in Boston.
Shields locations also utilize the network to provide automated office services. For example, as patients arrive for a visit, they are provided with a tablet to check in, complete any paperwork, check account balances, and access patient portals.
Comcast Business has announced other service rollouts with large healthcare providers in the last several months. Those included Advocare, a physician group with care centers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which is being provided Ethernet services. Mental health and addiction treatment services provider Cascadia Behavioral Health, which serves more than 15,000 clients across five counties in Oregon, also has deployed Comcast Business Ethernet.
