Data Centers With Patients - The Evolving Healthcare Industry

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By 2017, it will be unthinkable for a healthcare company to plan for a new data center.- Forrester Research

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Healthcare facilities have become data centers with patients.- Bhavesh Patel

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All data must be captured.- Bhavesh Patel

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Data digitization rules. Hospitals need to capture, manage, store, and protect more and more data. Patient histories, diagnoses, and prescriptions are examples.- Bhavesh Patel

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At the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in Washington State, patients may see an oncologist, get medications from the pharmacy, and perhaps undergo an MRI or CAT scan during a single visit. All the data must be captured.- Bhavesh Patel

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Also, the business-end of healthcare facilities relies on data centers for capturing costs and revenue, maintaining employee records and payroll, and storing back-up data from personal computers, e-mails, and other electronic communication.- Bhavesh Patel

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Hospitals are at different stages of achieving all of that, of course, but all of them need to get there because it’s mandated by law.- Bhavesh Patel

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As the healthcare industry evolves and strengthens its focus on preventive care, and as health organizations become more distributed in nature - with large campuses and regional networks - I.T. infrastructure is critical for the centralized management and storage of patient data. What used to be a paper-only industry is now completely paperless.- Justin Carron

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The data center is critical to the success of modern hospitals and to, what Gartner Research [Stamford, Connecticut] analysts call, real-time healthcare systems [RTHS].- James Cerwinski

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Hospitals use hundreds of applications, ranging from the typical ones found in most businesses - e-mail, online portals, back-office applications, HR, and financials - to applications supporting the work done in labs, ERs, hospital floors, clinics, radiology, and in just about every corner of a hospital.- James Cerwinski

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According to one of Raritan’s customers, Florida-based UF Health Shands [Hospital], its most important application, out of more than 200, is the hospital-information system that supports all patient caregivers. Each day the system gathers information on caregiver-patient encounters, medical records, and every work order, such as lab work, in all of Shands’ locations.- James Cerwinski

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Energy efficiency is important, of course, and an inefficient data center will get someone’s wrist slapped. Poor reliability and power availability, however, will get someone fired. It’s that black and white.- Bhavesh Patel

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Mark Hungerford, the operating engineer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington State, told us, ‘It’s all about reliability. Everything, especially our data centers, is built to never go down.’- Bhavesh Patel

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That’s because the center’s campus operations scream ‘mission critical!’ Data centers totaling 18,000 sq. ft. store colossal volumes of information produced by more than 200 research labs and advanced imaging facilities, cell monitoring and manufacturing operations, and specialized tools that analyze and sequence DNA and RNA.- Bhavesh Patel

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Data centers for healthcare networks are particularly sensitive to interruptions. Data-center downtime costs more than $5,000 per minute and on average $500,000 per incident, according to a 2011 Ponemon Institute [Traverse City, Michigan] study of U.S.-based data centers.- Bhavesh Patel

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For healthcare facilities that rely on I.T. systems to support critical applications, such as electronic patient data, the highest cost of a single event in the study topped $1 million, or more than $11,000 per minute.- Bhavesh Patel

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In healthcare facilities, power problems can result in losses more significant than financial costs - loss of human life.- Bhavesh Patel

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It’s one thing if someone’s credit card information is hacked from a national department store chain’s data base. It’s another thing entirely if someone’s medical history, prescriptions, and even genetic predisposition to certain diseases are hacked.- Bhavesh Patel

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That’s a nightmare that might be causing sleepless nights for healthcare facility executives. It’s a real problem because the frequency of serious security breaches during the past year seems to be increasing and, unfortunately, people appear to becoming numb to them.- Bhavesh Patel

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Healthcare organizations face very severe penalties for data breaches and must choose very wisely when deciding to outsource services or implement internal I.T. programs.- Justin Carron

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Storage is also a key factor. Some U.S. health organizations have data records far more extensive than the Library of Congress. The sheer amount of data is immense, and healthcare organizations need to be able to plan and predict not only for capacity requirements, but also for electrical infrastructure upgrades to support and protect expansive storage hardware.- Justin Carron

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Uptime can be impacted if you run out of resources supporting your data-center operations.- James Cerwinski

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DCIM [data center infrastructure management] has made server moves, adds, and changes more efficient because it tells us exactly where a server and its supporting infrastructure are located. If someone moves a server, an alert is sent.- James Cerwinski

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By using DCIM tools, managers know where each piece of equipment is located and their relationships with other systems; how much power capacity is available; if there are any harmful hotspots or wasteful over-cooled areas - and DCIM tools give suggestions on the optimal place to install a new server.- James Cerwinski

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These tools are essential to delivering high availability and keeping costs down by eliminating over-provisioning and wasted resources. They also support security by tracking equipment moves and personnel entering the data center.- James Cerwinski

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A data center in the Midwest that’s dedicated to maintaining healthcare records for hospitals across the country has layers of security, including a barrier that can stop a truck. Inside, an elaborate, multi-layer system helps ensure only authorized access to servers.- Bhavesh Patel

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Healthcare facilities need to comply with National Fire Protection Association [NFPA] 70, 99, and 110 requirements, as well as Joint Commission, Medicaid, and National Electrical Code [NEC] 220.87 reporting mandates to maintain proper accreditation.- Bhavesh Patel

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A critical power management system [CPMS] helps management comply with the requirements by capturing data and producing automated reports for inspection.- Bhavesh Patel

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A critical power management system at Bryan Medical Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, for example, produces automated reports that Joint Commission inspectors and the local fire marshal prefer to review.- Bhavesh Patel

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For co-location data centers responsible for healthcare information, a CPMS enables them to report on any downtime as part of its service level agreement [SLA].- Bhavesh Patel

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For instance, the report may show that even when downtime occurred, healthcare data management was back up and running instantly, or, say, in exactly three seconds.- Bhavesh Patel

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Many hospitals are no longer one-location entities but are multi-site campuses; so, data centers tend to be multi-sited as well, even though they may not be at every campus.- Bhavesh Patel

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A Midwest data center, at which we have power switching and controls systems, has two sites, but their service is cloud-based for their healthcare clients. Large hospital chains with numerous facilities probably have their own cloud- Bhavesh Patel

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Some organizations have large main campuses with available property to construct a data center as well as satellite branches where disaster-recovery facilities can be constructed in order to avoid having all assets in one place.- Justin Carron

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In these instances, it can be more cost effective to construct your own data center network.- Justin Carron

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For smaller organizations without spare real estate and regional dispersion, it may make more sense to seek out an accredited co-location provider with robust disaster recovery infrastructure.- Justin Carron

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Or, we’ve seen many smaller or independent healthcare systems, such as TriRivers Health Partners, collaborate for the construction of data centers, which allows them to share expenses.- Justin Carron

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As far as the cloud goes, a hybrid strategy allows healthcare organizations to get the best of both worlds - with the flexibility of an outsourced cloud infrastructure and the security benefits of a brick-and-mortar data center that allows them to actually ‘own’ the patient records internally.- Justin Carron

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Our customers have owner-operated data centers and co-located data centers. Some customers use a hybrid approach, using the co-located center to augment capacity needs of their data center.- James Cerwinski

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One of Raritan’s customers is a healthcare co-location provider. They use our intelligent energy-management solutions to monitor the energy usage of the customers residing in its data center to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs.- James Cerwinski

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They also use the Raritan DCIM monitoring software to readily share energy reports and SLA updates with its clientele, so that customers can remotely monitor the energy they are using and purchasing.- James Cerwinski

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The co-location data center also meets a number of standards, including HIPAA, and is audited annually against SSAE-16 SOC 2 standards.- James Cerwinski

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Twenty or more years ago, healthcare facilities were not constructed under the assumption that they would need the massive I.T. infrastructures that they rely on today.- Justin Carron

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This can make expanding aging facilities difficult; however, there are many electrical modernization strategies that can help older facilities meet the modern electrical requirements of today.- Justin Carron

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Facilities should always consult with a power-management expert to fully understand the impact that increased I.T. infrastructure will have on power systems and make the proper modifications to ensure critical reliability, availability, and safety- Justin Carron

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Luckily, if modernization cannot meet the immediate needs of healthcare facilities, the industry can also rely on a number of accredited co-location providers and cloud services that allow temporary data-center services while internal resources are constructed, ensuring that capacity needs are always met in a reliable and compliant manner.- Justin Carron

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Planning for infrastructure growth, such as for a data center, is a conundrum faced by facilities managers and engineers all too often.- Bhavesh Patel

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Mark Hungerford has wrestled with the conundrum for 15 years as the operating engineer for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. The center has grown six-fold since 1991 and now covers 15 acres and employs 4,000 people.- Bhavesh Patel

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They generally followed the model they used for the first new building - they started with a basic, robust infrastructure of high-quality equipment that would accommodate expansion and grew out from there.- Bhavesh Patel

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This approach has served the campus well. Today, it’s recognized for its reliable and right-sized infrastructure.- Bhavesh Patel

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Even though the square footage [a hospital] has allotted for additional data-center capability may be small, it still may be sufficient because power density, or the kW rate for a given server rack, has increased.- Bhavesh Patel

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While older data centers may have a power density of 5 kilowatt per rack, new-build facilities can achieve 20 kilowatts. Higher densities allow a smaller building, fewer racks, and fewer rack power distribution units [PDUs].- Bhavesh Patel

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Hospitals are used to buying MRI machines and other radiological modalities, so high prices aren’t new. Nevertheless, the cost of a data center is eye-popping, even to them. It’s on their balance sheet, and they don’t want it there.- Rich Banta

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With hospitals going filmless and paperless, if I.T. systems are down, patient care is affected, and lives could hang in the balance.- Rich Banta

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Hospitals with savvy risk managers are looking to transfer that risk and the associated capital expenditures as quickly as they can.- Rich Banta

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It is orders of magnitude. In the area of digitized radiology, the old standard for CT scanners was 64 slices. Now they have gone to 128, and that chews through a lot of storage space.- Rich Banta

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A radiologist pulling up your data in an emergency doesn’t need a subset of your information, he needs every bit of it.- Rich Banta

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That’s where the existing data-center infrastructure of hospitals, some of them in basements of 60-year-old buildings, just isn’t going to get it done.- Rich Banta

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They don’t want to make the capital investment in a second generator, a second UPS system, a completely redundant HVAC system, or any of the other availability requirements that the industry is pushing towards.- Rich Banta

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Once you get into these levels of availability, a retrofit is not the answer. It’s a total redo, and that is really capital intensive - we can attest to that - and that’s not capital they want to spend.- Rich Banta

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A co-located data center is shared infrastructure in terms of power and cooling; the cloud is shared infrastructure in terms of computing power and in terms of security.- Rich Banta

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Everything [in the cloud] shares a security model and shares vulnerability, so if another resident of the cloud is severely compromised, you’re at risk yourself.- Rich Banta

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That is currently an unacceptable level of risk for anybody who is liable for protecting patient information.- Rich Banta

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We are simply a high-tech landlord with compliance built in. It’s their servers, their storage equipment, and they own the software licenses.- Rich Banta

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We are a carrier hotel with 22 telecommunication carriers resident in our facility at the disposal of clients to use to connect to their data.- Rich Banta

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We are also responsible for evidence, artifacts, and preparation for audits of power and cooling availability and physical security.- Rich Banta

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The shell of the building can take an EF5 tornado straight on.

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That’s all part of the hardening and security features that make data centers so expensive.

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…disputed in the narrow corridors, proffered dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad…- Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) from The Library of Babel (1941)