4G LTE Implementation for Mobile Healthcare Units Executive Summary
The adoption of LTE from Verizon Wireless will empower the organization to be portable and maintain a fast, reliable, and secure connection among its mobile healthcare professionals. This will save money and allow for greater productivity.

Business Problem with Benefits
The Business problem that Tim and management have presented is that their business, a healthcare system, has doctors (both clinical and research) spread across western North Carolina and they sometimes do not have adequate infrastructure to transmit their research and clinical data (including data entry applications, medical images, videos, etc.) while in the field. Most of their devices that have been issued to the doctors are newer and they have in the budget to upgrade all devices by end of 2012 but they need to find an adequate connection medium that guarantees speed and portability. Benefits:
Faster - More bandwidth using LTEMobile - More convenience, accessible, and portable.Secure - By using a wireless connection with our existing Virtual Private Network (VPN), we can maximize security.Return on Investment - With this LTE implementation the return on investment would be significantly higher when compared to a wired backbone network.

Business Solution with Technical Specifications
We plan to use a customized LTE solution that connects mobile devices back to the main infrastructure. In order to do this we plan to use a Health Information Exchange (HIE) solution from Verizon Wireless. This solution allows doctors and physicians to access and make changes to their patients records from anywhere with cellular signal. Using this solution we can be confident that the data will be transferred on a secure network using a VPN architecture to tie back in with the hospital's main infrastructure. With the new LTE technology we should be able to access and send vital information or images at much faster speeds with Verizon Wireless where LTE is available. For example we have a mobile facility that does MRI’s and x rays with this solution we can send the MRI and x ray images back to the main hospital for analysis in no time. With this technology there has been reported speeds of up to 60 mbps download speed and 15 mbps upload speed which is a big jump from 3G speeds and should handle everything nice. (Source:http://business.verizonwireless.com/content/b2b/en/wireless-industry-solutions/health-care/health-information-exchange.html)
(Source: Alcatel-Lucent and Alexandria Police Department Demonstrate LTE for Public Safety pdf document)

Devices:
Smartphones - 4G devices will mainly be used for phone calls and checking emails on the go.
Tablets - Can be used for patient input like verifying insurance information and can be used to easily look over patient information and patient records also to write notes during visits, or can be used to show images from x-rays or MRI’s.
Air Cards - Will be used for the doctors laptops or desktops to allow them to connect to the web through verizon's network.
Base Stations - The base stations will be used in the mobile centers to allow wired connectivity to devices that need wired access. It will more than likely be connected to the server that will be located on the mobile center.
Femtocells - Is also used similar to a base station, it captures Verizon’s cellular signal and converts wired service to cellular signal, it also captures and boost 4G signal indoors.

Costs
Looking at cost and benefits in deploying an LTE solution to our remote workers in our healthcare system we have determined that by partnering with Verizon Wireless and getting a plan tailored to our organization, the cost would be very minimal compared to the value and benefits our users would gain by being able to connect back to our campus at high speeds to transfer medical data. Rough figures for the LTE infrastructure would include the cost for the hardware (which could be subsidized by Verizon), training for the IT staff, and the monthly plans, which would be relatively cheap due to an Enterprise agreement.

Designing this implementation to reduce costs by being simpler to install, operate, and upgrade can have a major impact on the overall business case for LTE, and is as important to lowering the delivery cost per bit as LTE technology itself. Even with greater bandwidth efficiency and improved end-user knowledge, LTE will not be practical unless base station equipment can be designed to considerably lessen the “non-technology” expenses of building and operating wireless networks.(Source: http://www.heavyreading.com/details.asp?sku_id=2308&skuitem_itemid=1151)

Costs:
Cost of Hardware: ~ $12,000 - $15,000 This includes hardware such as: base stations, smartphones/tablets. air cards.
Training for Information Technology Staff: ~ $2000Monthly Plan: ~ $500 - $750 / per month with Verizon Wireless Enterprise Agreement
Installation: ~ $6000 through Verizon Wireless Enterprise Agreement
Power: ~ $40 / per month increase in power consumptionRecommendations

Our recommendation is for the healthcare system to implement a 4G infrastructure with help from Verizon Wireless, this infrastructure will include the above devices (Aircards for existing mobile laptops, Base stations for remote clinic sites, and femtocells that can take an existing wired LAN at remote sites and provide them with 4G for their mobile devices.) The infrastructure will provide a high speed reliable backbone for transmitting Hi resolution medical images and patient data. Our existing VPN environment running over LTE can fulfill all requirements set forth by HIPAA and other healthcare laws. We are going to outsource specific hardware requirements to Verizon Wireless who will also train our IT staff to implement the technology at our sites. We are hoping that in this project we can consolidate some of our communications structure and eliminate the need for dedicated wiring at our mobile clinics. An added benefit of 4G and having the ability to have base stations is that in the event of a disaster we can still maintain connectivity even though our wired infrastructure is down. The cost is minimal compared to the benefit of having reliability and security that 4G can provide. Implementation can start immediately by working with Verizon to consolidate all of our existing plans under their enterprise pricing and updating hardware to 4G specifications, then we can look at our mobile units and implement base stations that will capture the 4G and convert into a wired LAN for equipment such as MRIs that do not support 4G. Femtocells can be used in buildings that have low wireless coverage and lack a wired infrastructure.

Appendices
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(Source: Hype Cycle for Wireless Networking Infrastructure, 2011 attached pdf document)