CIO's Shopping Guide

Company : Kothari Medical Center, Kolkata

Profile : In the realm of medical research and hospital industry,
Kolkata has always played a pivotal role hosting one of India's oldest medical
research institute- Calcutta Medical College. It is in this confluence of
technological progress backed by a strong medical background that Kothari
Medical Center (KMC) found its way to emerge as a leader in this industry,
amidst prominent players.

Current IT infrastructure : With the IT department solely relying on
the use of Unix and Linux as the default operating system for the entire
operational activities, Windows, the domi­nant OS till date has been shelved out
here.

Data integrity and security, being the primary parameters in KMC, the
hospital's IT department has planned their entire set-up on the working
parameters of Unix, making this enterprise stand apart from the other lot. Data
theft is another parameter where the main focus is kept and it is here that the
IT department is keeping its focus.

Backed by dual IBM servers, N5000 and X226, working as the central
processors, the endos­copy and radiology is also powered by two servers for data
maintenance and supporting imaging capacities. The central processors also
handles the office LAN using Unix protocol across all the departments.

Arijit Roy Chowdhury Manager-Information Systems, KMC

The hospital, in total comprises of more than 60 full-fledged workstations in
the Unix module, connected in LAN based on switch band and CAT.

Comprising of three types of workstations, the hospital has some computers
acting as the terminal base primarily in the front-desk, and the operational and
administration divisions solving the purpose of data entry.

Apart from the 60 Unix workstations in the LAN, the hospital also comprises
of seven odd computers having Windows as the OS catering to the minor
requirements with Lotus and related typing applications.

IT infrastructure for 2009 : The IT depart­ment is planning to get rid
of Windows entirely. Arijit Roy Chowdhury is planning to increase the
workstations by 70 percent keeping the require­ment of additional users in mind.
Also, the hospital is looking forward to increasing its image processing
capacities. This will result in the accommodation of at least one new server
handling the bulk image processing, thereby reducing the processing time.

With plans for the radiology department going for complete remodelling the
next year, the hospital will soon require a completely new IT infrastructure
soon.

Current system suppliers : The hospital has got an MIS agreement with
Vision Comptech for maintenance of the workstations with direct IBM personnel
taking care of the servers directly. KMC is also involved with Vision Comptech
for daily purchases and maintenance requirements.

Desired qualities : Being unique in its realm for using open
source-based workstations in a LAN environ­ment, KMC always considers post-sales
services as the primary criteria for selecting their system supplier. Also,
flexibility of customised purchases is another primary criteria for the
hospital.

In the second place, KMC looks into the market reputation of the system
supplier and the price leads in the offering in bulk and stand-alone
combinations.

AVISHEK RAKSHIT

avishekr@cybermedia.co.in