Reliable and scalable storage infrastructure for the healthcare industry

The healthcare industry has benefited from digital transformation arguably more than any other over the last two years. Critical remote care services, and real-time localised data has helped to track pandemic trends, and the rapid, widespread rollout of the vaccine across the globe could not have happened without digitisation.

However, this increased reliance on digital technologies comes hand in hand with massive amounts of data that needs to be captured, stored, analysed, and protected. This sudden and exponential data growth has put infrastructure that the healthcare industry depends on under huge pressure. Healthcare data management and storage systems need to be able to quickly access clinical applications and patient databases and be able to deliver reports almost instantly.

This means that when it comes to the healthcare industry, storage infrastructure needs to be reliable and scalable at every level. Moreover, as an industry under growing pressure, that is quickly introducing more and more digital services, it is key that data is effectively managed and made available to be harnessed so that these entities can realise its benefits.

So, what are the challenges facing healthcare with data storage and how can organisations solve them? To find out, Tarsus Distribution and HPE recently partnered with TechCentral to conduct a survey, which delved into the challenges SA’s healthcare providers face, where their concerns lie, and how they manage their workloads with their existing storage investments.

Covered In This Article

Protecting critical patient data
Not enough scalability and visibility
Hampered by legacy systems
Building an intelligent computing foundation

Protecting critical patient data

Within the healthcare industry, a lot of extremely sensitive electronic protected health information (ePHI) is at risk, which is why it is a favourite target for bad actors. This data is of high monetary and intelligence value to cyber criminals and nation-state actors and includes patients’ protected health information, financial information such as credit card and bank account numbers, personally identifying information (PII) such as ID numbers, as well as intellectual property in terms of medical research and innovation. This has seen an increasing number of attacks being carried out on medical infrastructure, and ransomware has already wreaked havoc on many organisations in this sector. With these factors in mind, keeping data secure emerged as a top priority for nearly half (44%) of businesses in general.

Not enough scalability and visibility

The proliferation of healthcare data is only set to increase as the demand for digital services grows, and more and more digital technology is brought into these entities.  This is seeing healthcare providers battle to achieve a dynamically scalable storage architecture that can cope with the deluge of data, providing the flexibility needed now, and into the future. It’s no surprise then, that ‘too much complexity’ was an issue for 30% of businesses, and another 16% found over or under-provisioning to be a challenge.

Similarly, guaranteeing the real-time visibility of data has been crucial to healthcare organisations for some time, but the global COVID-19 pandemic fuelled an immediate demand for large-scale data modelling and visualisation in order for spikes in cases to be tracked to prevent further spreading of the virus. This sudden and significant increase in data being written and read means that healthcare organisations require a storage system that is scalable to store large data sets, and at the same time, can offer the performance needed for analysis and visualisation.

Hampered by legacy systems

Unfortunately, many healthcare providers are hampered by legacy systems and software. The last majority of the innovative solutions and apps being used by healthcare today, have elements of artificial intelligence and big data analytics, which are resource-intensive and need a robust IT infrastructure. In addition, they need to integrate with existing systems and software to deliver efficiency from an organisational as well as clinical standpoint.

In short, for any healthcare entity, a storage solution needs to be able to store, protect and manage a wide range of sources and types of data, and concurrently, have the ability to scale to manage the skyrocketing growth of data. Luckily, through Tarsus Distribution, HPE offers a range of solutions that promise to do exactly that.

Building an intelligent computing foundation

HPE’s data management and storage solutions all help to build an intelligent computing foundation for hybrid cloud and bring the new computing capabilities that modern digital enterprise transformation needs. Firstly, HPE ProLiant Servers are powering the next wave of digital transformation, by simplifying and automating management tasks, and establishing a solid foundation for an open, hybrid cloud platform. This is enabled by composability using unmatched server automation, server security, server optimisation, and built-in intelligence.
virtualised.

Next, HPE SimpliVity is a powerful, enterprise-grade hyper-convergence platform that unites the organisations server with high-performance data services that streamline IT operations, bringing an intelligent compute foundation for hybrid cloud offering unmatched workload optimisation, security, and automation. SimpliVity’s hyper-convergence puts the organisation’s entire virtualised IT infrastructure and advanced data services into one integrated powerhouse and enables developers to rapidly deploy applications at cloud-like speed while dramatically cutting costs and simplifying backup and restore. 

Finally, HPE’s Nimble Storage offers everything from integrated backup and disaster recovery to seamless IT operations. Healthcare organisations have enough to do addressing all the data challenges facing them today without also having to deal with legacy storage headaches and disruptions. HPE Nimble Storage makes it easy to start leveraging the power and agility of next-gen storage by offering an enterprise-grade platform with proven and guaranteed 6-9s availability and extreme data integrity and resiliency.

Is your data storage and management plan up to scratch? Do you want to ensure that you’ve covered all your bases, making sure your data storage plan meets your business’s needs now and into the future? If you do, download the following checklists to help you do just that:

Business and financial requirements checklist

Technical and security compliance requirements checklist