"We worked closely with Time Warner Telecom to design a network that works for both of us," said Bill Bailey, enterprise architect for ProHealth Care in Waukesha, WI. "The Native LAN service's Ethernet handoff met our goal to eliminate ATM gear-along with the costs to maintain and administer the switches. Most everyone on our IT staff has Ethernet-protocol training and experience compared to a couple of people who understood ATM. That change alone lifts a large administrative burden off our shoulders."

ProHealth Care contracted 12 Gig-E Native LAN circuits configured into six point-to-point connections between three data centers and three additional health care facilities throughout the regional area. The Time Warner Telecom infrastructure enabled the organization to diversify its assets among the data centers. By consolidating application servers to reduce redundancy, the company also saved money on product license fees and administrative support costs.

"The bandwidth we're getting from Time Warner Telecom inspired us to review our IT infrastructure across discrete locations on an aggregate basis to eliminate redundant elements. The cost-savings we realized from centralizing our core PACS (Picture Archiving Communication System) imaging assets alone, were extremely valuable in our budget considerations," explained Bailey.

The Native LAN service's low latency and high capacity have benefited the health care organization in a number of ways. "The sub-millisecond performance has eliminated latency complaints we were getting before the implementation," described Bailey. "That's particularly important when you consider that we need to move large data sets associated with our cardiology and radiology applications between sites. Even with the large data volumes patient exams generate, the Gig-E circuits still give us about 50 percent headroom to grow into."

Time Warner Telecom expanded its fiber presence into the cities of Oconomowoc and Mukwonago to facilitate the service implementation for Pro Health Care. It is offering fiber-based facility services for voice and high-speed data applications. The company now has the ability to offer like services to other enterprises requiring greater bandwidth and reliability in the area.

"We've noticed the growing trend toward moving patient data among multiple locations to deliver better care," said Sandee Lammers, sales director, for Time Warner Telecom in Milwaukee. "Not only can health care organizations like ProHealth Care traffic data to highly experienced specialists, but our Native LAN technology helps them more fully utilize their personnel and equipment to increase productivity and their return on assets. Our fiber-based technology has been a key enabler of IT consolidation projects across the country."

About Time Warner Telecom

Time Warner Telecom, headquartered in Littleton, Colo., provides managed network services, specializing in Ethernet and transport data networking, Internet access, local and long distance voice, VoIP and security, to enterprise organizations and communications services companies throughout the U.S. As a leading provider of integrated and converged network solutions, Time Warner Telecom delivers customers overall economic value, quality, service, and improved business productivity. With nearly 20,000 route miles of its own local and regional fiber networks, a national IP backbone with 10 Gbps capacity, and nearly 5,300 buildings connected directly to its fiber networks, Time Warner Telecom provides the local "last mile" of reliable communications services to customers. Please visit www.twtelecom.com for more information.

About ProHealth Care