August 25, 2009 -- The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) has initiated work on new cabling standards that will define requirements for telecommunications infrastructure for healthcare facilities such as hospitals and clinics.
The standard will outline cabling, cabling topologies, and cabling distances requirements as well as pathways, spaces and other ancillary requirements to support a wide range of healthcare facilities and systems.
The document is intended to support a wide range of biomedical systems (RFID, BAS, nurse call, security, access control, pharmaceutical inventory, etc.), particularly those that use or can use IP-based infrastructure. In particular, with regard to horizontal cabling for healthcare applications, the working group that proposed the new standard recommends that the meaning of the term "work area" must be expanded and a minimum number of required permanent links to provide necessary cabling for each work area must be established.
The new standard will be developed by TIA Engineering Committee TR-42 User Premises Telecommunications Cabling Infrastructure's Subcommittee TR-42.1 Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling.
The work areas to be addressed are divided into the following classifications: Patient Services; Surgery/Procedure/Operating Rooms; Emergency; Ambulatory Care; Women's Health; Diagnostic and Treatment; Caregiver; Service/Support; Facilities; Operations; Critical Care.
To participate in the development of this standard, contact Herb Congdon at hvcongdon@tycoelectronics.com
On the Web:
Listen to a podcast interview with Herb Congdon about this standard and other recent important standards work underway in TR-42.
Download TIA's 2008-2009 Standards & Technology Annual Report (STAR) in PDF format.
