ORION is the "better path" for researchers at the University Health Network (UHN), introducing dramatic improvements in connectivity and access to new tools and resources, and opening the doors to enhanced participation in medical research collaborations and trials.

"The previous technology that handled the day-to-day business of UHN did not work at all well until ORION came on stream, connecting the 10,000-plus staff, medical researchers and trainees competing for bandwidth," says UHN's Director of Research Information, Thomas Goldthorpe.

Once-choppy videoconference connections and collaborative experiments with long-distance partners over commercial Internet improved by leaps and bounds as soon as a connection to ORION was turned up.

UHN, the umbrella organization that supports three Toronto hospitals - Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, and Princess Margaret Hospital - is affiliated with the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine and is currently the largest academic health sciences centre in Canada. It is committed to innovative research and teaching, along with exemplary patient care.

Connecting to ORION over GTAnet, UHN is a data-centric organization. The best available bandwidth at desktops varies between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps. UHN researchers accumulate half a terabyte of new information each week - no small quantity, and that amount is increasing, driving up the competition for bandwidth. That said, it is easy to see why ORION is actively promoted internally by IT staff to address researchers' need for large database storage.

A good example is UHN's involvement in I-ELCAP (the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program) that required a huge amount of bandwidth that only advanced R&E networks like ORION can provide. An international, collaborative group of experts on lung cancer and related issues, the project's mission is to achieve early diagnosis, treatment, and ultimately, a cure for lung cancer through the rapid dissemination and advancement of research findings among the network.

At UHN, this involved capturing breast images and transmitting them to the repository at Cornell University. However, before having access to ORION, researchers had trouble sending the extremely large image files. It would take a few days to empty the queue, creating bottlenecks over the commercial Internet.

As soon as ORION with its links to other R&E networks became available, no images sat in the queue for more than a few seconds before transmitting. Now, according to Goldthorpe, bandwidth is taken for granted.

Without ORION, some UHN projects simply would not be possible. These include a large pilot trial of testing home hemodialysis machines in which ORION acted as a gateway through which UHN scientists were able to monitor their patients.

Then there is videoconferencing, which is a fairly common practice among UHN researchers. By going through an advanced network like ORION, the quality and reliability of videoconferencing are greatly enhanced.

For example, take Dr. Brad Wouters, Senior Scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute at UHN, whose team is investigating the tumour microenvironment focusing on the cellular and molecular responses to deficiencies in oxygenation. Dr. Wouters, who still supervises activities at a lab at his former institute in Maastricht, The Netherlands, is able to meet with colleagues by videoconference every two weeks.

"The meetings over videoconference are much like our traditional lab meetings," says Dr. Wouters, stressing the value of being able to read each other's body language. "Videoconferencing offers a much more relaxed atmosphere than teleconferencing."

UHN was one of the first groups to hook up to the Ontario North Network (which later merged with the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN)), which employs two-way videoconferencing for doctors to connect with patients remotely. Improving the quality and reliability of the technology by using ORION was crucial for these researchers.

ORION's many peering agreements with ISPs and content providers are another bonus for UHN employees. "Peering is essential to being able to work remotely. Before ORION's peering with Rogers, for instance, we would not have considered a home desktop monitoring system. Suddenly working from home becomes a reality for our researchers," says Goldthorpe.

For more information about University Health Network, visit www.uhn.ca.