St. Albans, Vt.-- As digital imaging technology has taken hold in hospitals across the country, and all imaging modalities (X-Ray, CT Scans, MRIs, etc.) have converted to digital, the question has become how to store those digital images efficiently. High quality digital imaging file storage presents a major issue for hospitals, including Northwestern Medical Center (NMC). Mark Sutton, NMC’s Diagnostic Imaging Manager, says that one CT study alone can contain up to 1,500 high-resolution images.
NMC’s Information Technology Department has found a way to store these images through a new partnership with Iron Mountain, Inc., a “Cloud” storage provider. Over the last five years NMC’s digital imaging center has generated 4.7 Terabytes of digital x-ray data, which are being migrated to the cloud storage in a process that will take about 60 days. The migration should be completed by February 1, 2010.
With an information growth rate of 3.5 Terabytes per year, NMC needed to find a solution that would provide flexible, sustainable storage, while also recognizing a need for foolproof Disaster Recovery. With this new partnership with Iron Mountain, NMC can grow its off-site storage as needed, without buying additional equipment. By using Cloud storage, NMC will save approximately $100K over the next five years, and will eliminate the five-year purchasing cycle for new hardware that eventually ends up in the landfill.
As an added bonus, this new process will reduce NMC’s power consumption by 8,000 kW per year, equating to additional savings of more than $2500 over the initial five years of this project. The result is a “greener,” less expensive process to meet NMC long-term data storage requirements for Diagnostic Imaging. This savings adds to NMC’s other “green” cost savings initiatives, including replacing inefficient lighting in Cobblestone and in exterior fixtures and reducing food waste in the Courtyard Café.
For more information about digital imaging technology available at NMC, including digital Mammography, X-ray, CT, and MRI, call 524-1058.
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