Healthcare sector
In a clinic, a system outage isn't an administrative nuisance — it's a full waiting room and a schedule that can't be recovered. DataRoad ensures that your clinical software, network and equipment are available when they're needed, and that patient data is protected as the law requires.
What makes a clinic different from an office
The technology is similar. The context is not. In an office, half an hour without systems is solved with a coffee; in a clinic, it means postponed appointments, test results not entered and patients waiting for an answer nobody can give.
Availability above all
Clinical software and the links to laboratories and insurers must be up and running during opening hours. The maintenance window is outside them, not during.
Special category data
Health information has its own regime under the GDPR. Access control, logging and encryption stop being good practice and become obligations.
Medical equipment on the network
Ultrasound scanners, analysers and imaging workstations often run legacy systems that cannot be updated. Isolation is the only serious answer.
Many workstations, little time
Consulting rooms, reception, nursing and billing need printing, scanning and access to patient records in seconds — not minutes.
Segmentation is what sets a clinic network apart from any other network
Most clinics grow on a single flat network: patient Wi-Fi, administrative workstations and clinical equipment all share the same space. One infected laptop in the waiting room is all it takes for the problem to reach where it shouldn't.
We separate traffic into distinct networks, with firewall rules between them, and leave legacy equipment accessible only to those who need it. It's a configuration change, not a budget one — and it completely changes the risk profile.
What we do in a clinic
| Area | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Network and cabling | Certified structured cabling and business wireless coverage in every consulting room, technical room and waiting area. |
| Security | Firewall and VLAN segmentation (separate networks within the same infrastructure), isolating clinical equipment, the patient network and the administrative network. |
| Servers and data | Servers, NAS and backup solutions with periodic restore tests and an off-site copy. |
| Day-to-day support | IT Unlimited — unlimited technical support at a fixed cost, with continuous monitoring and on-site response when needed. |
| Compliance | Support with the technical side of the GDPR: access control, activity logging, workstation encryption and retention periods. |
The most common mistake we find. Backups configured years ago, running every night, that have never been restored even once. A backup that has never been tested isn't a backup — it's an assumption.
Structured cabling in clinics: the network that segmentation demands
Separating medical equipment from the administrative network, and both from the visitor network, is only possible if there are enough well-documented network points. In an under-cabled clinic, segmentation always ends up improvised — and an improvised VLAN is a VLAN someone undoes at the first emergency.
Count the points for the worst day, not the average one
A clinic with twelve consulting rooms doesn't need twelve points. It needs the workstations, imaging equipment, label printers, check-in kiosks, access points, cameras and access control — plus headroom for the consulting room that will open next year.
- Consulting rooms — clinician workstation, diagnostic equipment and printer, each on its own point.
- Imaging — X-ray, ultrasound and other equipment connected by cable, never by Wi-Fi.
- Admissions and reception — workstations, kiosks and payment terminals.
- Infrastructure — access points, cameras, access control and the rack.
Medical equipment does not forgive an improvised network
An imaging system that loses its connection mid-scan gives no warning: it gives you a lost scan and a patient who has to come back. That's why we connect medical equipment with certified cabling, on its own VLAN, and leave Wi-Fi for whatever can reconnect without consequence.
Works in a clinic that stays open
We work in the evenings and at weekends, room by room, with the clinical system running throughout. Not a single appointment is cancelled because of us. Every point is labelled and mapped, so troubleshooting stops being guesswork.
Documentation, because this is special category data
We hand over the network map, the Fluke certification report for every point and the VLAN design. In a healthcare facility this isn't bureaucracy: it's what allows you to demonstrate, under the GDPR, that the separation between clinical data and the rest of the network exists in fact and not just in intention. We explain this in why certifying your network is not optional.
Segmentation starts with the cable. A VLAN designed on paper only protects clinical data if there are enough points to implement it without shortcuts.
Cabling projects in healthcare facilities
- Clínica Mulher, Twin Towers — 192 network points, Wi-Fi 7 and firewall.
- Clínica Lambert, Corroios — network, business wireless and IT Unlimited.
- Wi-Fi in clinics — fast for staff, secure for patient data.
Wireless networks in clinics: three audiences under the same coverage
Staff, patients and equipment must not share a network
A clinic's Wi-Fi serves three groups with opposing needs.
- Staff need access to the patient management software and internal systems.
- Patients need internet in the waiting room and nothing more.
- Equipment — ultrasound scanners, label printers, check-in kiosks, triage tablets — needs a stable connection and to be out of everyone's reach.
We install business wireless networks with these three networks separated at network level, not merely by different passwords: each on its own VLAN, with its own rules on what it can and cannot reach.
Roaming, because equipment moves with people
Nobody in a clinic stays in one place. A clinician walking from the consulting room to the treatment room with a laptop open cannot lose their session halfway down the corridor.
That's what distinguishes a professional installation from a handful of routers hung on the wall: the access points are managed as a single system and devices move between them without dropping the connection. Where the clinic uses Wi-Fi calling, that continuity stops being a convenience and becomes a requirement.
The waiting room is a density problem, not a range problem
Twenty people sitting in the same room, each with a mobile phone, put more load on the network than an entire floor of consulting rooms. The usual mistake is to respond with more power, when the right answer is more access points at lower power on well-distributed channels.
We carry out an on-site coverage survey, measuring zone by zone, and size the network by the number of devices that will be there — not by square metres. The choice between Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 7 comes down to that same calculation.
In a clinic, Wi-Fi that “sometimes drops” always ends in the same place: someone connects equipment to the wrong network just to get things done. That's why the network has to work well enough that nobody needs to work around it.
Wireless network projects in healthcare facilities
At Clínica Mulher, in Sete Rios, we installed 192 network points and Wi-Fi 7 in a brand-new facility. At Clínica Lambert, in Corroios, the network and business wireless were delivered together with IT Unlimited support. We wrote in detail about the logic of separating the clinical network from the patient network in the article Wi-Fi in clinics and patient data security.
Video surveillance in clinics: the project starts with where there can be no camera
In a clinic, video surveillance is useful for the same reasons as in any building open to the public — reception, entrances, access corridors, the consumables and medication store, the car park — but the system design doesn't start with coverage. It starts with exclusion. An image captured inside a consulting room or treatment room stops being a security matter and becomes the processing of health data, with everything that entails.
That's why we treat business video surveillance in a healthcare facility as part of the network project, not as an add-on bought from a catalogue.
First, the list of what stays out
Consulting rooms, treatment and examination rooms, toilets, changing rooms and staff rest areas cannot be monitored, and capture must not extend to the public highway. The waiting room calls for judgement: you film the entrance, not the people sitting waiting to be called.
That leaves the places where a camera genuinely solves something:
- the entrance;
- the reception desk;
- access points to restricted areas;
- the medication cabinet;
- the car park.
Once that list is set, the rest of the project is technical.
Signage, retention and access logging
The obligations are concrete and verifiable:
- visible signage before each monitored area;
- a defined retention period that is actually observed — keeping footage indefinitely is not an option;
- access control for the footage, with a log of who viewed what;
- the processing recorded in the facility's data protection documentation.
Employees must be informed, and the purpose cannot be to monitor their performance. In a clinic, where the data is already special category, these specifics should be validated with legal advice — we hand over the technical compliance dossier for the system so that this validation has something solid to work from.
Cameras must not share the clinical equipment network
An IP camera is a computer connected to the network, powered through its own cable. That requires two things decided at the cabling stage: switches with enough PoE power budget for every camera — without that headroom you get random reboots nobody can diagnose — and a dedicated VLAN, separate from clinical workstations, the patient management software and the imaging equipment.
Video is continuous, heavy traffic, and recorders and cameras are among the devices that receive the fewest updates. On a flat network, the corridor camera becomes the shortest route to the patient record.
Who sees the footage, and for how long
Access to footage is a role, not a password shared by whoever happens to be on the desk. We install NVR recorders with encrypted storage, configured retention and copies of critical footage, with remote viewing on mobile and desktop assigned per user.
Recorder sizing comes from a single question — how many days back do you need to be able to go? — multiplied by the number of cameras and the image quality. That's where systems bought off the shelf fall short, overwriting exactly the period that was needed.
In a clinic, a badly aimed camera is a greater risk than one camera too few. That's why the survey is done on site, point by point, before any quote — and the system is then kept under maintenance, with periodic recording checks, firmware updates and failure alerts.
How this connects to the rest of the infrastructure
Video surveillance is not a separate system: it uses the same structured cabling, the same switches and the same segmentation policy that separate the clinical network from the administrative and visitor networks. That's how we worked at Clínica Mulher, in Sete Rios, and at Clínica Lambert, in Corroios, where the network was designed to accommodate cameras, access points and access control without any of these systems seeing the others.
To understand the decisions that determine whether the footage will be of any use, read our guide to IP video surveillance projects for businesses; for the network itself, the article Wi-Fi in clinics and patient data security covers the same separation logic.
DataRoad IT Unlimited
Talk to DataRoad. We assess your operation and propose the right plan.
How we get started
- SurveyWe visit the clinic, take an inventory of equipment, network and clinical software, and listen to the people who work there every day.
- AssessmentWe set out in writing what is at risk, what is urgent and what can wait — with the costs attached to each item.
- DeliveryPlanned interventions outside opening hours, in phases, without stopping the clinic's activity.
- Ongoing careContinuous monitoring, technical support and periodic review of the infrastructure as the clinic grows.
Real cases
See all DataRoad projects and news
Frequently asked questions
Do you work with the clinical software we already use?
Yes. We don't sell clinical software and have no interest in replacing it. We make sure the infrastructure it runs on — server, network, workstations and backups — is ready to support it.
Do we have to close the clinic for the work to be done?
In the vast majority of cases, no. Cabling and equipment replacement are carried out outside opening hours or in phases, room by room.
What happens if the system fails on a Saturday?
That depends on the contract. Plans with extended cover include out-of-hours response and replacement stock for critical equipment. That's precisely what an SLA should set out in writing.
Does this take care of our GDPR compliance?
It takes care of the technical side: access, logging, encryption, backups and retention periods. The documentary and organisational side remains the clinic's responsibility — but it becomes much easier to sustain once the technical work is done.
Other sectors we support
- IT for Hospitality
- IT for Offices and Multinationals
- IT for the Public Sector
- IT for Embassies and International Organisations
- IT for Schools, Colleges and Universities
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How we work
This service is provided exclusively under an IT Unlimited contract.
DataRoad does not provide one-off (one-shot) assistance, nor does it sell equipment on its own. We work under a contract with a fixed monthly fee, taking full responsibility for the client's environment.
