The intention of the project at the VAMC of Des Moines is to align its existing infrastructure with the standards set by the National Office of Information and Technologies, while also streamlining the healthcare records process to ensure easy accessibility for all individuals receiving care at the facility. Infrastructure upgrades were performed on 13 buildings encompassing a total of 300,000GSF.

As part of the project, the prior 28 Telecommunications Rooms and two server rooms were consolidated into a single server room. Building management system interfaces, access control points, and the main server room systems were enhanced. These systems are critical components of the infrastructure upgrade, which will enable the implementation of the new Electronic Health Record Management system. The new system will warrant a straightforward and structured procedure for accessing patient records, giving ease to both patients and medical center staff.

Improvements were made to the facility’s fiber optic backbone, redundant fiber pathways, entrance rooms, dual pathways of multimode fiber to each telecom room, cable pathways, telecom rooms, and replacing all Cat cabling with Cat6A.

These improvements allowed the VA to complete their mission and move forward with the necessary construction and advancement of the facility’s electric distribution system and IT infrastructure. The upgrades also provided valuable insights for the preparation of drawings, specifications, and cost estimates.