Tallahassee, FL - June 18, 2014 - Florida LambdaRail, LLC (FLR) announced today it has welcomed Boynton Beach based Bethesda Health as its 44th network affiliate. As Florida’s Research and Education Network, Florida LambdaRail provides communication and network services in support of education and research activities across the state. Current network participants include Florida Atlantic University, The University of Miami, Palm Beach County Government, and the Jupiter based Scripps Research Institute and Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience.
"Bethesda is excited to join Florida LambdaRail, providing the infrastructure for our graduate medical students to connect with other colleges, universities and teaching hospitals in Florida, and with Internet 2’s advanced networking tools and their Health Science Initiative,” said Roger L. Kirk, FACHE, President and CEO of Bethesda Health, Inc. “Our residents and medical students will have high-speed access to the online libraries and information needed to achieve success in their education and provide our community the highly reliable care of a top quality graduate medical education program.”
Bethesda Health is a comprehensive health system comprised of two not-for-profit hospitals, Bethesda Hospital East and Bethesda Hospital West, Bethesda Health Physician Group, Bethesda Heart Hospital, Bethesda Orthopedics Institute, Cornell Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine, the Center for Women and Children, which includes Level III neonatal intensive care and pediatric intensive care, the Bethesda College of Health Sciences and accredited centers for Stroke, Chest Pain and Heart Failure. With strong community support, Bethesda Health has grown to 670 physicians and more than 2,500 employees since opening in 1959.
Florida LambdaRail CEO Joseph Lazor said of the new relationship, “We are pleased to welcome Bethesda Health to the FLR research & education networking community and to provide them with the communications and networking tools they need to continue providing excellent service to their patients, doctors, administrators and staff. We are particularly excited to be supporting their growing medical education program.”
Formed in 2004, FLR is an independent statewide fiber-optic network owned by and operated on behalf of its partner universities and affiliates. FLR drives academic, scientific, educational and clinical applications and data over its 1,540-mile fiber-optic facilities based network and provides direct connectivity to a wide range of both domestic and international Research and Education networks. Plans are currently in place to increase the capacity of the network from the current rate of 20 gigabits per second to 100 gigabits per second, internationally recognized as the state-of-the-art among R&E networks, by mid-2015.
On the web:
Bethesda Health: www.bethesdaweb.com
Florida LambdaRail: www.flrnet.org