StorageTek, Partners Keep Healthcare Industry Data Healthy With Storage Solutions

LOUISVILLE, Colo., Nov. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- There is no need to call the doctor when StorageTek is in the house.

With hundreds of healthcare customer installations worldwide and an average of 20 terabytes stored in StorageTek’s equipment, StorageTek(R) (Storage Technology Corporation) , the leading provider of enterprise information lifecycle management, along with its best-in-class healthcare partners, is keeping hospital data alive and well during its lifecycle.

Today at RSNA, StorageTek further demonstrated its success in the healthcare industry, with several notable customers, including Novant Health Corp., Greenville Hospital System and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Novant Health Corp. of Charlotte and Winston-Salem, N.C., continues to reap the benefits of StorageTek’s storage solutions. At current rates, the organization is saving $2.1 million per year that would have been spent on film for image storage.

“We realized several years ago, in conjunction with new federal regulations, that storing patient imaging studies on film was no longer efficient,” said Robert Dick, technical lead, imaging applications, at Novant. “With the help of StorageTek and its PACS partner, we are now able to provide physicians with fast and simultaneous access to patient images while still protecting the integrity of the data. These solutions have allowed us to centralize the management and administration of our radiological imaging data and help our hospital eliminate inefficiencies and costs associated with maintaining film storage depositories.”

Greenville Hospital System (GHS) in South Carolina provides world-class care through a network of five state-of-the-art campuses and several outpatient treatment and wellness centers located throughout South Carolina, and currently uses StorageTek for a variety of strategic storage needs. The hospital system began using StorageTek’s BladeStore disk storage solution in 2003 to store optical images and immediately saw a significant decrease in downtime and retrieval time.

Presently, the facility uses StorageTek’s 9176 disk subsystem to store patient images that are up to a year old to allow for fast retrieval and response times for active patients. Images are then migrated to an intermediate disk storage level for about two years and then are moved to deep archive. Using this tiered-storage approach, Greenville has achieved substantial ROI and has cut its batch cycle in half, specifically reducing certain jobs from 20 minutes to a single minute.

At Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., keeping costs down is always an issue. In addition, data and images must be readily accessible and kept on hand for longer periods because of new federal regulations. As a result, Wake Forest looked to information lifecycle management solutions from StorageTek to store data more cost-effectively by placing the right data on the right device at the right time. Through its tiered-storage approach, Wake Forest has increased its ability to comply with federal regulations, while also cutting costs by leveraging existing resources more effectively.

“We’re finding that our healthcare customers are required to balance the immediacy of data access with cost effective archiving capabilities,” said Gary Zasman, director, information lifecycle management solutions at StorageTek. “StorageTek’s information lifecycle management solutions enable healthcare organizations to reduce costs while providing a scalable, efficient storage offering at various levels throughout the lifespan of the data. In conjunction with our best-in-class partners and more than 30 years experience dedicated to meeting storage needs, StorageTek continues to be a viable partner for healthcare organizations looking to maximize the value of their data.”

Healthcare solutions from StorageTek are designed to meet the specific needs of the healthcare industry and the demanding nature of healthcare information retrieval. This includes data management needs associated with radiology, pathology, cardiology, and various aspects of healthcare administration. Archiving solutions for PACS (Picture Archive Communication Systems) are sold in association with key PACS partners including Siemens Medical Solutions, Philips Medical Systems, Agfa Healthcare, Kodak Health Imaging, and Rorke Data.

About StorageTek

StorageTek(R) (Storage Technology Corporation) is a $2 billion global company that enables businesses, through its information lifecycle management strategy, to align the cost of storage with the value of information. The company’s innovative storage solutions manage the complexity and growth of information, lower costs, improve efficiency and protect investments. For more information, see http://www.storagetek.com/, or call 1.800.877.9220 or 303.673.5151.

TRADEMARKS: StorageTek and the StorageTek logo are registered trademarks of Storage Technology Corporation. Other names mentioned may be trademarks of Storage Technology Corporation or other vendors/manufacturers.

StorageTek

CONTACT: Joe Fuentes, Manager, Global Public Relations, +1-303-661-2523,joe_fuentes@storagetek.com, or Bob Wientzen, Senior Manager, PublicRelations, +1-303-661-8247, bob_wientzen@storagetek.com, both of StorageTek