Network Plan TriHealth Inc FCC Healthcare Connect Fund

1. Background, Goals and Objectives of the proposed network

TriHealth is a unified health care system based in , . It was formed in 1995 by bringing together two of Cincinnati’s most reputable health care organizations: Bethesda Hospital and Good Samaritan Hospital. These two acute care hospitals enable TriHealth to provide a wide range of clinical, emergency, educational, preventive and social programs. In addition, TriHealth's non-hospital services include physician practice management, fitness centers, occupational health centers, home health, and hospice care.

To accomplish its mission, TriHealth has a large number of physicians and specialists on staff. In fact, TriHealth is one of the largest employers in greater Cincinnati with over 11,000 employees including nearly 600 employed physicians and residents. TriHealth is ranked as a top rated employer in the country.

The TriHealth system now comprises five hospitals:

 Bethesda North Hospital with approximately 360 adult and 60 newborn beds.  Good Samaritan Hospital with approximately 460 adult and 130 newborn beds.  Bethesda Butler Hospital in Hamilton, Ohio.  McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford, Ohio.  TriHealth Evandale Hospital in Evandale, Ohio.

In addition, there are over 125 clinics and other health care facilities in the Greater Cincinnati area that have access to the TriHeath resources.

TriHealth is also a major affiliate of undergraduate medical education with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine including:

 Graduate medical education/residency programs in: Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and General Surgery.  Fellowships in: Vascular Surgery, Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, Family Medicine/Sports Medicine, Robotic-Assisted Cardiovascular Surgery, Family Medicine/Sleep Medicine. TriHealth, Bethesda North Hospital, and Good Samaritan Hospital are consistently recognized as among the top hospitals in Cincinnati and the country. TriHealth is also rated as a top Heart Hospital in the country.

TriHealth wishes to participate in the FCC Healthcare Connect Program whose goal is to connect all the remote sites to the hospital's information systems to provide a central source for patient information. Connecting the clinics to the hospital's network allows the clinics to access all of its resources including primary EMR applications, current and NextGen information services. The long range vision of the Program is to enable a set of standard telehealth connection services that will interconnect throughout the region and facilitate any healthcare location in the state to share one or more telehealth services with any other healthcare location within the region and ultimately to interconnect with other health care providers on a national basis.

This RFP addresses the telecommunications and network maintenance to interconnect the main hospitals, the data centers and the multiple clinics and doctor’s offices in the area. This includes: bandwidth for general Internet connectivity, voice, data circuits for sending and receiving medical billing information, files and/or images to and from remote locations, medical administration, and telemedicine.

2. Sites that are participating in this consortium are:

HCP NO. HCP Name HCP Address 15038 TriHealth Heart Institute 1275 North High Street Hillsboro, Ohio 45133 16471 TriHealth TPP Georgetown 421 Home Street Georgetown, Ohio 45121 16474 TriHealth TPP Bethel 210 N. Union Street Bethel, Ohio 45106 17825 McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital 110 North Poplar Street Oxford, Ohio 45056 26051 TriHealth-McCullough-Hyde Medical Building - 10058 Cooley Road Brookville Brookville, Ohio 47012 26054 TriHealth-McCullough-Gastric Clinic 10 North Locust Street Oxford, Ohio 45056 26055 McCullough-Hyde Medical Building 5151 Morning Sun Road Oxford, Ohio 45056 48711 TriHealth-McCullough-Hyde Outpatient 79 West Central Avenue Services Camden, Ohio 45311 48723 Samaritan Obstetrics & Gynecology 1149 Stone Drive, Ste.100 Harrison, Ohio 45030 49172 Winslow Data Center 2800 Winslow Cincinnati, Ohio 45206 49635 TriHealth-Bethesda North Hospital 10500 Montgomery Road Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 49637 TriHealth-Good Samaritan Hospital 375 Dixmyth Avenue Cincinnati, Ohio 45220 49658 TriHealth Digestive Institute 98 Elm Street, Suite 310 Lawrenceburg, Indiana 47025 50176 TriHealth Evendale Hospital 3155 Glendale Milford Road Evendale, Ohio 45241

3. Strategy for aggregating the specific needs of health care providers (HCPs), including providers that serve rural areas, within a state or region Most of the remote clinics are small, so providing a separate EMR application for each site would not be cost effective, and would make the sharing of this information with other health care providers difficult. By sharing the hospital's resources, each clinic and remote site will have access to a much broader array of information services. 4. Strategy for leveraging existing technology to adopt the most efficient and cost- effective means of connecting those providers The clinics already have network equipment to interconnect PCs and printers. By using high speed connections and standard network equipment, TriHealth will be able to connect the PCs and printers in the remote offices to the hospital's existing network. This will allow access to servers and applications in the hospital as well as cloud based applications available on the internet. The hospital already has an extensive network of leased facilities, which interconnects the Hospital and remote clinics. 5. Discussion of how the broadband services will be used to improve or provide health care delivery The Data Center is located on Winslow Street near the Bethesda North main hospital campus. The hospital and clinics have direct access to the internet for cloud based services and dedicated access for such services as radiology and patient records. Remote locations are connected using mostly a combination of ISDN PRIs and high speed Ethernet internet connections. This network will support applications such-as:  Interactive video conferencing and telemedicine.  Streaming video for distance learning and continuing education.  Enabling medical record queries from multiple sources.  Transmission and receipt of imaging files.  Web-based collaboration tools for meetings and peer-to-peer consultation and interaction and for hospital administration.  Access to internet based resources for staff and patient education. The hospitals and all clinics and locations will benefit from these high speed connections. Facilities will be upgraded and expanded, as needed for growth and new services beyond what’s mentioned above.

6. Discussion of previous experience in developing and managing health IT (including telemedicine) programs Jim Backus, the IS Communications Manager and Consortium Leader will oversee this project Mr. Backus has been with TriHealth for 3 years and has over 4 years of experience working in IT and IS positions. 7. A project management plan outlining the project's leadership and management structure (a work plan, schedule, and budget)  Jim Backus, the IS Communications Manager, will be the project Manager.

 Schedule: - Bid process to last 28 days with earliest contract selection date on the 29th day - Implementation of service is expected to take place within 60 days of the Allowable Contract Selection Date

 Budget: -Telecommunication Services - Annual Cost ~ $100,000. -65% of these costs will be covered under the Healthcare Connect Fund, while the remaining balance will be paid out of the hospital's income.