Nuts and Bolts: Can IT be a benign tumor?

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre (RGCI) is a facility in North India providing diagnostic, treatment and multi-disciplinary care for patients with cancer. Some time back, the introduction of a hospital information system (HIS), picture archival and communications system (PACS), and electronic health record system (EHR) led to rapidly increasing volumes of data and as its CIO opined rightly, as a cancer hospital, a patient may visit us the next day, after a few weeks, and maybe after 10 years.

This meant the data containing patient medical records and images needs to remain highly available rather than becoming less accessible within archival solutions such as tape libraries. That, in short, translated that storage and information management had to be done the sharp way, slitting across layers of flab and clogs. The center keeps all patient records and images instantly accessible to consultants and physicians. Managing the records of over 125,000 patients who have been treated since the center's opening means data must remain highly available to ensure patient history informs accurate decision-making and treatment.

JP Dwivedi, CIO at Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre shares some insights on a storage uplift endeavour undertaken at this organization.

Have you outlined and spotted benefit areas with your decision to choose Dell for storage solutions?

We deployed a Dell Compellent storage array and Dell PowerEdge R720 servers powered by Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family to run PACS on an Oracle database, with VistA (Veteran Affairs Information System and Technology Architecture) being used for electronic health records. The benefits of Dell's Solutions are many like patient needs at forefront of technology-enabled healthcare; medical images and records are instantly available for patient visits; it meets seven years of projected data growth due to high scalability; treatment responsiveness increases through ability to respond to urgent requirements etc. It also provides ability to double storage capacity provides a compelling price-performance ratio and highly-responsive service post implementation for attending IT issues.

What was the evaluation diagnosis like?

With an existing relationship with Dell in the supply of almost all server room components, RGCI evaluated storage management systems from EMC, HP, and Dell Compellent against 40 parameters. The evaluating committee selected Dell Compellent as the most suitable storage solution for the centre's requirements. It delivered on its competitive price-performance ratio, and the highly scalable architecture met the expanding data needs of their medical systems.

Can you help us understand potential areas that you want to cover henceforth?

We have integrated cancer research programs as well as state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic equipment for the treatment of all types of cancer. Due to the unpredictable nature of cancer progression, patient records need to remain readily accessible to consultants, surgeons and hospital staff. Data containing patient medical records and images needs to remain highly available rather than becoming less accessible within archival solutions such as tape libraries. Thus, they required a stable, scalable platform for the hospital information system, PACS and electronic medical records.

So well-thought and smart storage can lead to better insights for medical teams?

 

The implementation of the Fujifilm Synapse PACS medical imaging system to enable RGCI staff to store, view and share images electronically provided many benefits including instant access to images to track patient history, and elimination of deterioration in image quality that can occur with film. However, PACS is a data-intensive system and the center's current storage area network (SAN) was reaching capacity. The need was to deploy an integrated platform that would support HIS, electronic medical records, and PACS.

How does this encompass and deliver on final patient side goals or the business-last-mile?

With patient well-being improved through timely diagnosis and treatment, RGCI has plans to move to a virtual desktop infrastructure to deliver data security and business continuity in the event of a system failure. We now have the ability to provide an accurate roadmap of future IT needs due to our Dell Compellent solution. We also have plans to implement virtual desktops throughout the institute to deliver data security and ensure that consultants and surgeons can access medical information from anywhere in our facilities. It's about ensuring that patients are comforted and reassured that RGCI is using the latest treatment procedures and technology to prevent and treat cancer.

Any challenges that concern you at this stage? Will this sync in well with incumbent processes and culture/habits?

As such there are no issues with IT Infrastructure. We are now planning to deploy monitoring tools to publish dashboard of health status of all infrastructure and network components so that any budding problem could be arrested in time and preventive actions could be taken.

How do you intend to shift IT's perception as just another cost centre in an industry like yours? Any peek as to your blueprint next to evolve IT's role in this space?

The concept of running IT as cost centre is traditional and outdated. All progressive organizations aim to make IT a profit centre. There are two ways to achieve it. Firstly, make spare capacity available to other organizations to manage their infrastructure services / application services. Alternatively, make maximum services commoditized and outsource them. Keep a small and nimble structure to oversee outsourced services. We are evaluating different options and will work on optimal combination of both above. We have spare capacity on hand and limitations & constraints on other. Our strategy is to balance the areas of strengths and weaknesses and make IT earn its revenue from internal and external customers.