“Hospices are organized programs of support services for patients in the advanced stages of a terminal illness and their families” (Abrahm and Hansen-Flaschen, 2002). Hospice facilities are very much fruitful for the society, say for example, in United State several of the most primitive hospice organization brought back the patients who were dying. Kinzbrunner, Weinreb, and Policzer, (2001) states that
“Historically, hospice had its origins in the Middle Ages. Derived from the Latin term bospes, meaning host or guest, hospices served as way stations from travelers between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. One can speculate that the association between hospices and the care of the sick and dying many have come from the fact that during the Crusades, wounded soldiers would often stop at hospices on the way home, and many would not survive their injuries” (p. 33).
Today many Americans prefer hospice facilities for their end-of-life care, but paradoxically, patients under hospice facilities progressively more are enforced to sacrifice effective palliative treatments along with aggressive medical intervention. Unlike the British model of hospice that revolved around providing care in designated inpatient facilities, however, the hospice model developed in the UK (Kinzbrunner, Weinreb, and Policzer, 2001, p. 35). Undoubtedly hospice facilities are providing better treatment to the severe patients, but unfortunately often the treatment are limited due to the financial limitation, because most of the financial support for the hospice facilities comes from the donations or any other voluntary efforts. Despite of having fear in mind of patient of probably not getting adequate services in hospice care, after all, the 2.4 million Americans died under hospice facilities in 2005, from them about one third patients and family members were highly satisfied.
About the XYZ, Inc.
The XYZ, Inc. is a non profit organization providing the hospice facilities to the people who are ill or destitute of the local territory in a small scale, whereas it is operating its activities through four housing facilities and a central office. XYZ, Inc. always maintain their necessary files and papers generated from the four facilities because it is very much essential to keep all the information of the patients for providing them better treatment. Yet now they are managing their file and papers of information manually but recently they are feeling that it is becoming so tough for the main office to manage the files and papers soundly, and so they require an effective computerized communication system to manage those.
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This proposal paper will describe the most efficient communication network that will cover the coo, four house managers, four day managers, coordinator and 15 volunteers, and as well as the necessary equipments, installation cost, software and hardware required will also be described. This paper will also assist XYZ, Inc. to be under a communication network through which they can easily communicate with each other vocally as well as maintain a safe and secure information management system.
Networked Computer System
Since the XYZ, Inc. hospice care is in a crucial problem about the managing trouble of files and papers originated from four facilities, so it is very much vital to have a better networking system by which one hand it can communicate with its members as well as other hand can exchange information or resources between facilities. On the whole there are three types of networking system used by the needy organizations, which systems may vary according to the types of the organization. They are – (1) Wide Area Network (WAN) is one of them, usually covers a large geographical area, require the crossing of public right of way and rely at least in part on circuits provided by a common carrier. Organization having several branches in several region of a country uses this network (Stallings, 2007, p. 22). (2) Local Area Network (LAN) is another one, spread over small extent that interconnects a variety of devices and provides a means for information exchange among those devices. Usually organization having several offices in a single building or cluster of buildings uses this network. (3) Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is the rest one, basically a wide version of LAN or a combination of several LAN, but smaller than WAN. It is spread over a single region having very high-speed connections using fiber optic cable or other digital media. The organization having several offices/branches in a single region usually uses this network. Except these some other networks are Public Switched telephone Network, Virtual private network, Global area network, Campus area network, Personal area network, Internetwork etc.
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According to the characteristics of network and the necessity of the organization, it would be better for the organization to adopt MAN networking system. MAN is suggested since it is assumed that the four facilities are situated at different place with a central office, because it is not clearly mentioned in the description about the distance of the four facilities and the main office. If the four facilities and the central office are closely situated, then it is suggested to adopt LAN network. But this paper will propose MAN networking system for the XYZ, Inc. hospice center.
Necessary Equipment, Hardware and Software
To set up MAN network three issues should be considered carefully. They are- topology, protocol and architecture. Topology is the design that refers that how the network is physically connected. Among three types of topology (star topology, bus topology and ring topology) star topology is the best for the organization, where all the substations are connected to a central station, which can be said a hub or main switch. Star topology is suggested here because XYZ, Inc.’s four facilities need to be connected to the central office so that the chief housing coordinator can easily and promptly communicate with the four house managers and four day managers. Another thing is protocol, which is most essential element of a computer network, refers a set of rules, agreed upon ways or a communication language which all computer and devices understand. Protocol facilitates for checking errors, sending and receiving data and transmitting data between systems. Several types of protocol are AppleTalk, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), DECnet, Ethernet, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Internet Protocols (IP), Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX), NetWare, Signaling System 7 (SS7), Systems Network Architecture (SNA), Token Ring, X.25. ATM network would be the better is a sort of protocol where information move in the shape of fixed size packets, which provide the organization high speed, data security, and video and voice communication between the main office and four facilities. Last one is the network architecture, which is two types- client-server and peer to peer architecture. Client-server architecture is suggested for the hospice care center. Client- Server is a kind of network architecture where devoted stations those supplies services are called serves and the station that gets those services is called work stations. Here the four facilities are serves and the main office is the work station. The major services comprise files and papers, printer, scanner, CD, Hard disk, processor, internet connection and other services.
For creating a MAN network necessary hardware pieces are Routers, Switches, Bridges, Hubs, Repeaters, Network interface cards, Fiber optic cable, Ethernet cards etc. Timbercon fiber optic cables are suggested for this network, because it is designed to allow a high degree of flexibility and customization. It can be ensured that the XYZ, Inc. will obtain a product designed for its particular need and application through getting virtually unlimited options. In case of application software that is used to solve any problem or process data, XYZ, Inc. is advised to make their personal software by a software engineer according to their need and use it for their easy operation. And in case of system software they are suggested to use that software with which they are habituated or feel comfortable such as windows, LENUX, UNIX, DOS etc.
The above networking pattern will allow the organization high speed (622 Mbps to 10 GBps per channel) data transmission and access. Not only faster but also all branches can communicate each other directly with a safe and secured manner. The big advantage of this network is that if the size of the organization becomes triple in future it need not to change current network, just it has to enlarge the network. Through this networking system XYZ, Inc. can store their necessary files and papers with a huge storage capacity safely and securely as well as can find out the necessary information promptly whenever they are needed. After all MAN network allows XYZ, Inc. hospice care center a better operation of its activities than any other networking system.
MAN networking system for XYZ, Inc. hospice
Associated Cost and its Sources
Though it ahs been said that XYZ, Inc. is a non profit hospice care center, but tat doesn’t mean that it has no cost. It has to cost a huge amount of finance for providing treatment to the patients. Several kinds of expenses are associated with this, such as purchasing medical equipment, rent of premises, operating and maintaining costs of files and papers, entertainment costs of volunteers, managers and coordinator, etc. Generally the hospices have to make payment all of the expenditure of lasting medical equipment, oxygen, and dispensable medical or nursing supplies. For instance, if anyhow a hospice admits a patient who needs mechanical ventilation at his/her home, the hospice is likely to rent the required equipments. Other hand XYZ, Inc. has to afford a big amount of cost to set up the proposed networking system. It has to purchase computers, networking equipments, and hire technicians to set up the network. Here the costs mostly depend on where it is situated and from where it will collect its necessary equipment, hardware and software. So it is very tough for the XYZ, Inc. as a non profit hospice to maintain all of the expenses described above. Maximum early modern hospices were supported fundamentally by donations and volunteer effort. So YXZ, Inc. has to also depend on donations, contributions or any other funding agencies. However, Medicare or Medicaid continues to pay for long-term dialysis if a patient is referred to a hospice for management of a terminal condition other than renal failure. And in this case expenses are comprised in favor of laboratory and diagnostic dealings associated to the fatal diagnosis, and transportation related with varies according to the patient’s level of care. XYZ, Inc. can also get payment from insurance companies. Most importantly XYZ, Inc. must try to develop their fund and community donations to cover all costs.
Recommendatory Conclusion
The main requirement of the proposed hospice housing is to be connected into a smooth networking system under which the main office can easily communicate with its four facilities and manage all the files and papers generated from the four facilities. In this paper the proposed networking system will be the most effective and efficient system for the hospice (Hoyer, 1998). Other side this paper has described the probable cost associated with the networking set up and carrying out the operations, and also outlined that how can it collect funds to bear the necessary expenses. Since the XYZ, Inc. is a small scale hospice center with four facilities, a main office and few volunteers so it should not be faced much problem to be connected each other and collect adequate funds to carry on the operations.