Comcast Business Boosts Network Health for Advocare

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast Business today announced that it is providing Ethernet services to Advocare, a leading physician group with care centers located across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These Ethernet services will provide the necessary infrastructure to help support the organization's optimization of electronic medical records (EMRs), improve access to cloud-based applications and deliver better patient care.

Founded in 1998, Advocare is one of the largest independent, physician owned and physician governed, multi-specialty physician groups in New Jersey and the greater Philadelphia region. With nearly 600 providers in more than 190 locations, the pediatricians, adult primary care physicians and specialists within the Advocare network serve over 500,000 patients. As part of its unwavering commitment to quality patient care alongside the latest technology innovations, Advocare care centers have adopted the use of electronic medical records (EMRs). In order to optimize EMR performance, however, Advocare needed to overhaul its existing network infrastructure.

"We had three major considerations when looking to upgrade our network. We needed a secure connection so that sensitive patient files could be shared via a private network. We needed faster speeds so our larger EMR-created digital records could be quickly transferred from our data center to our care centers. Finally, we required low latency so our physicians could schedule appointments, generate patient records and perform billing tasks without losing efficiency," said Howard Orel, MD, FAAP, President and CEO of Advocare. "We looked at all of our options and Comcast Business was the best. We can now be faster and more agile when responding to patient needs, which is our primary goal."

Comcast Business installed a 20 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) Ethernet Dedicated Internet line at approximately 50 Advocare care centers, including the organization's corporate headquarters in Marlton, New Jersey. These Ethernet services – which are currently being rolled out to other Advocare care centers across the region – are capable of scaling to 1 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) of network capacity as business demands evolve.

"Our EMR system, internal collaboration tools and other mission-critical applications are already housed in the cloud, which makes having a high-capacity Ethernet service an important part of our everyday business operations," said Jason Pecarsky, MD, FACP, Chairman of Technology and Innovation Committee at Advocare. "As we look to enhance our current EMR system by adding real-time scanned document files to the loadable ones we are currently transferring, having the network infrastructure to support that will become absolutely essential."

All Advocare care centers using Comcast Business Ethernet services will also have the option to receive Comcast Business VoiceEdge for reliable phone service across each location. These services will additionally support videoconferencing solutions within each location to foster better collaboration across care centers and beyond.

"As physicians continue to embrace the technical benefits of EMRs and increasingly use their WiFi-enabled tablets and smartphones for patient examinations, having a network infrastructure that's capable of supporting these high bandwidth demands will become even more important for healthcare institutions of all sizes," said David Dombroski, Vice President for Comcast Business, Freedom Region. "We're proud to provide the high-speed and reliable network solutions to help these organizations provide the best possible patient care."

About Advocare:
Advocare has evolved from an early alliance of 30 pediatricians to one of the largest independent, multi-specialty physician groups in New Jersey and the greater Philadelphia region. With nearly 600 providers in more than 190 locations, Advocare serves over 500,000 patients and its communities with high quality, personal care and a commitment to promoting best practices for optimal health and wellness. Learn more at www.advocaredoctors.com.

About Comcast Corporation:
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company with two primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is one of the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone providers to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses. NBCUniversal operates news, entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures and Universal Parks and Resorts. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.

About Comcast Cable:
Comcast Cable is one of the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses.  Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings.  Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company.  Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.

SOURCE Comcast Business

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