Ten years ago, an internet outage meant staff could not browse the web. Today, for a facility using a cloud-hosted EHR, voice over IP phones, eFax, telehealth and online pharmacy ordering, an outage can stop clinical work. Yet many facilities still depend on a single connection from a single provider.
Redundancy is not a luxury for these environments. It is a practical response to the fact that lines get cut, equipment fails and carriers have outages.
Construction crews cut a cable
A carrier suffers a regional outage
The router or modem fails
Storms damage lines or power at the carrier's equipment
A billing or provisioning error disrupts service
A single point of failure means any one of these takes the whole building offline.
The most robust approach is a primary connection, such as fiber or cable, plus a secondary from a different provider, ideally using a different technology. If both circuits come from the same carrier, or share the same conduit into the building, a single event may still take both out.
For smaller facilities, a business-grade cellular or fixed wireless connection can serve as backup. Speeds and data limits are usually lower than the primary, so plan for essential traffic. Test performance in your building, since signal can be weak inside thick walls.
Satellite services have improved and may serve rural locations, though latency and cost should be evaluated, particularly for voice.
Ask the carriers whether circuits enter the building at different points and follow different routes. Carriers do not always volunteer this.
Redundant circuits need a device that can switch between them automatically. A business-grade firewall or SD-WAN appliance can monitor the primary connection and move traffic to the backup within seconds when it fails. Without automation, someone must notice and reconfigure manually, which defeats the purpose at 3 a.m.
Also consider:
Power for the network closet, ideally on a battery backup, and on a generator-supported circuit if the building has one
Spare equipment on hand for quick replacement
Configuration backups for firewalls and routers
Before buying, list services in priority order. Typically those include the EHR, phones, nurse call integration, eFax, pharmacy connectivity, and then email and general browsing. You may choose to throttle or block resident Wi-Fi and streaming when running on backup, preserving bandwidth for clinical needs. Quality-of-service settings can enforce this.
If phones depend on the internet, plan for outages. Options include a failover number that forwards calls to cell phones, a few analog lines for emergencies where available and sensible, and a documented procedure for contacting families and physicians.
CMS requires long-term care facilities to maintain emergency preparedness plans that address communication and continuity of operations. Connectivity failure is a foreseeable emergency scenario worth including in your risk assessment and exercises.
Schedule a test, coordinated with clinical leadership, during a low-risk period. Unplug the primary and confirm that the backup takes over, that phones and the EHR still work and that alerts are sent to IT. Many facilities find that the failover is configured but never actually tested.
What is the service level agreement, and what remedies apply when it is missed?
What is the typical repair time for an outage?
Can we get a different physical path from our other provider?
Is there a business support line that avoids lengthy queues?
Redundancy adds recurring cost, but a backup circuit is generally far less expensive than the primary. Compare it against the cost of an hour of disrupted operations, including staff time and delayed admissions or billing.
UnityCare IT designs connectivity for healthcare facilities, including carrier selection, failover configuration and testing. If you are relying on a single line today, we can walk through options appropriate for your size and location.
Call or text: 405-285-3845
New customers: start@unitycareit.com
Existing customers: support@unitycareit.com
Address: UnityCare Technologies, 2524 N Broadway Ste 554, PMB 947974, Edmond, Oklahoma 73034-4172