Children's Isolation Ward Network

[BullDogFan]

Hello,

A while ago, I received a phone call from a Children's Hospital; their PR person wanted to know if our company would be interested in donating a computer networking system that would allow about 20 children kept in isolation to communicate with each other, watch movies "together" on line, to see each other via video conferencing, etc. In short, a system that would allow these kids to be kids.

As it turned out, my company couldn't help; we just didn't have the spare time or resources. But I never forgot that call.

Now I'm in an MIS class for an MBA program. I'm supposed to design a system for a project, and I thought this would be a worthwhile project. It would be hypothethical, but at least I'd know what such a system might cost. Maybe then I could turn the idea over to a Rotary Club and let them work their fund raising magic.

I was hoping someone might have a suggestion as far at the network. Wireless is out; hospitals require all systems to be hard wired because they're scared to death about frequency interference.

Could I go with an ethernet LAN? The dstances are not far: 10 rooms on one side of a corridor, 10 rooms on the other side of the corridor.

I got the impression they wanted a closed workgroup kind of set up. I don't think they want these kids surfing the Web; they're isolated enough already. The goal I think is to put these kids together, in a virtual sense, for movie watching, e mails, game playing, etc.

With that in mind, would I need an internet connection to create an intranet or BB for them?

As you can tell, I'm not a computer person. But if I had an idea of how to start mentally designing this system I can price out the components.

Thanks to all,

Dan

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Yeah running a LAN with a 20 port switch would be a good idea, you would have to use some fancy custom programs to do it

Why are these kids in isolation? Contagious disiese? They attack people?

 

[BullDogFan]

Yes, the kids are in isolation for contagious diseases--or, conversely, for severely weakened immune systems.

I understand the LAN and the 20 port switch, but why the fancy custom programs? I would have thought this would be a very elementary system.

So it's more difficult than I thought, huh?

Thanks, DJ, for theinput.

Dan

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Well you said something about isolating them from the internet

If they had ascess to the internet, they could just go thru msn, aim, icq or whatever program they wanted, but none of those work without connecting to the net.

 

[BullDogFan]

I see.

Thanks again!

 

[Inaris]

Really what you would need is a server that would allow this kind of communication. You can use Netmeeting to do text messages on any basic network. If you want things like MSN, then you would need a server to manage the traffic.
Anyway, there are a lot of things out there already similar to this. I like the idea a lot, as it would be very helpful to the children.
You might rethink the idea of wireless in this situation. It's getting more and more accepted and would be so much easier to manage.
Something like a Panasonic Toughbook, the CF-18 is a good one as it's not too expensive, and is a tablet type machine at heart. Very convenient for kids.
The movie watching thing is a bit more trouble though. You would have to have a server setup to play the movies over some kind of a streaming system. I'm not sure if that is possible yet or not. I know there is a program called MythTV that offers something like it, but it's mostly used for PVR operations. They are out there, it just takes some looking.
Anyway, the idea is great and the concept is better. It's all very possible, but the costs can get a little higher than might be expected.
Good luck and let us know if you get it worked out.

 

[BullDogFan]

Thanks Inaris!

Dan

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

You could use winamp with shoutcast to stream movies, it's pretty simple to run, you doubble click something in winamp, stream it and they can see it