Industry Focus HEALTH
Figure 1. Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Pisana data protection architecture. NetApp SnapVault provides disk-based data protection for all hospital locations, copying only the data blocks that have changed since the last backup.
backups to run more frequently and utilize less capacity because no redundant data must be moved or stored. “We know that our data is secure with the NetApp solution,” says Caramella. “The Fujifilm engineers are very experienced at managing the storage, so we no longer have to rely on our own engineers to volunteer their time.”
Saying goodbye to data loss In the two years that Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Pisana has been running Fujifilm Synapse on NetApp storage, the hospital has had no incidents of data loss. The delays associated with reloading images into the central archive have been eliminated. And because data protection is automated with SnapMirror and SnapVault, the hospital is reclaiming significant staff time on a daily basis. “Our engineers are now able to focus on image-assisted surgery, which uses preoperative and intraoperative imaging to guide laparoscopic surgeons,” Caramella explains. “This is an area where our hospital is innovating, and now our engineers are able to dedicate themselves to the task, which is much more rewarding for them than maintaining a PACS.”
Access to images in minutes - from any hospital The most important benefit of the NetApp storage architecture and global PACS is the ability to communicate more efficiently within the hospital network. “The open-source PACS we had before was really just a radiology tool,” says Caramella. “The Synapse PACS is connected to the clinical world, so our technicians are able to securely access the images. Previously, we were dealing with dozens of phone calls every day asking us to fax reports.”Radiologists and clinicians can now access
images and reports located anywhere within the hospital network across the WAN within minutes. Clinicians belonging to the area vasta can request an opinion from a remote radiologist with a simple phone call, improving quality of care. “Transporting images to the medical wards used to take hours, even days in some cases,” says Caramella. “Those delays were very disappointing, because, although we were very efficient in the radiology department, often the technician didn’t benefit from that work. Now, as soon as we sign our report, the images and the report are immediately available.”
Scaling for new modalities Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Pisana is now able to accommodate new modalities and higher resolutions to stay at the forefront of medicine. “Our storage needs continue to increase at a very fast pace, so it’s extremely important to us to have scalable storage that is always available,” says Caramella. “We will be adding two more hospitals within the area vasta and also bringing nonradiological imaging into the PACS so that we can extend these benefits to our cardiologists and nuclear physicians.”
Reducing average patient stay time by 15% Although Caramella points out that the NetApp storage and the Fujifilm PACS are not the only factors, the hospital has observed a 15% reduction in patient stay time over the two years that the solution has been in place. “In the past, we had patients staying longer in the hospital due to the inefficiencies of information transfer from the clinical ward to the imaging department and back, and one of the factors that is consistently reducing the length of that stay is the introduction of the global PACS,” Caramella concludes.
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