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Tokushima University Hospital Delivers Collaborative Approach to Healthcare
EMC storage enables Tokushima University Hospital to meet rapid growth in medical data while innovating data sharing and collaborative care across medical institutions
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Customer
Tokushima University Hospital
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Industry
Healthcare
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Offerings
EMC Isilon X-series scale-out storage, EMC Isilon NL-series scale-out storage
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Key Challenges
Consolidate disparate and complex systems, improve responsiveness, meet demand for long-term storage
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Outcomes
Simplifies environment, supports informed decision-making, enables inter-hospital collaboration
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Challenges
Growth in use and retention of medical data requires new approach
Tokushima University Hospital is responsible for providing healthcare to the Tokushima Prefecture in Japan. As a core medical institution for the region, a defining characteristic of the hospital is its commitment to using information and communication technology (ICT) in the provision of medical care. This includes electronic medical records (EMR), and its Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS). The organization continuously improves its technology, deploying new systems to enhance the delivery of high quality care by clinicians and medical staff.
The hospital was managing complex and sprawling infrastructure involving up to 100 different systems built and deployed on an as-needed basis. Servers, storage, and applications were dedicated to individual systems, leading to inefficiencies and increased management. Tokushima University Hospital wanted to implement an integrated storage platform for its different types of medical data. This was a pressing need due to the growth in medical image data, its legal requirement to retain medical data as a teaching hospital, and its increasing use of video. All of which were placing new, challenging demands on its existing storage.
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Our Approach
Single platform simplifies environment
Tokushima University Hospital partnered with EMC to implement a solution that would eliminate complexity in dealing with multiple vendors, and consolidate its disparate systems onto a single, unified storage platform.
Tokushima University Hospital deployed a single 11 node cluster comprising EMC® Isilon® X200 with six nodes for data accessed frequently, and an EMC Isilon NL400 with five nodes for its archival layer to balance performance and cost efficiencies.
EMC Isilon delivered a fully integrated storage platform to enable applications to be installed cross-platform, without being tied to the individual lifecycles of equipment and applications. With EMC Isilon, the hospital now has storage resources in place for the next five years, radically reducing its need for further procurement and planning for IT.
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“EMC Isilon is the perfect fit for medical institutions because it is helping us gain the maximum value from the data at our disposal.”
Ken’ichiro Shimai, Assistant Professor, Medical IT Center at Tokushima University Hospital
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OUTCOMES
Supporting data analytics platform
Through enabling the storage of log data, EMC Isilon provides Tokushima University Hospital with the starting point for big data analytics and improving its responsiveness to medical scenarios. Analyzing the data of system access logs is helping the hospital to make smart decisions about its level of care, the way it makes use of facilities, and the resources it has available. With EMC Isilon, the hospital can now track every workflow from medical care including examination, diagnosis, and treatment, to payments.
Delivering cost and management efficiencies
EMC Isilon has reduced the hospital’s maintenance costs by 90 percent by simplifying its environment. Remote deployment and monitoring enables issues to be solved ahead of time, resulting in IT personnel and resources being re-directed to enhancing the provision of its medical services. Maintenance costs have been reduced further through the efficient allocation of data according to need and frequency of access, helping the hospital to control costs.
Promoting data sharing and collaboration
EMC Isilon is playing a significant role beyond the confines of the hospital. The ICT model deployed by Tokushima University Hospital has become a roadmap for all medical institutions within the Tokushima Prefecture as a means to share resources and provide improved services. The hospital now has a technology platform that contributes to the long-term quality and expansion of its medical services.