These trends, among others, are forcing many healthcare organizations to upgrade the infrastructure within existing closets and consider more robust technologies for new closet designs.

Healthcare network closet infrastructure must not only be designed for the specific equipment and applications being supported but for other factors as well, such as local power quality, the size of the space, regulatory requirements, and available maintenance resources.

Organizations should also consider the typical technology refresh cycle compared to the infrastructure refresh cycle. In many cases, infrastructure is expected to support multiple technology refreshes.