The Hitachi HealthXchange Module and Mawell M7 solution
Increasing populations and the additional storage requirements for a spiralling volume of their medical data cause acknowledged concerns among healthcare organisations.
A straightforward CT scan, for example, produces 250 MB of data, while an in-depth colonoscopy study can generate files up to 2 GB. In addition to such hefty storage needs, other patient information also needs be quickly accessible to hospital staff.
To address this issue, Hitachi Data Systems, provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions (SOSS), teamed up with Mawell, the European healthcare software company, on a year-long project to bring highly scalable data management solutions to a wider European healthcare audience. The result is the Hitachi HealthXchange Module and Mawell M7 solution.
Mark Clark, Hitachi Data Systems Director for e-health solutions EMEA, explained: ‘By partnering with Mawell, we’ve combined the company’s sophisticated medical software with our advanced storage technology. The result is a data management solution tailored to the exact needs of healthcare organisations across Europe. Medical staff can now enjoy a new level of simplicity and fast access to patient records and images. Virtualisation will soon be an integral part of healthcare IT systems, and by using Hitachi storage, hospitals and clinics can benefit from our unrivalled expertise in this area.’
The Mawell M7 medical imaging solution manages multimedia clinical content and electronic health records across multiple sources, Hitachi reports. ‘It creates a virtual network within the healthcare organisation, and can be extended to include other healthcare providers in different locations. Through virtualised patient informatics, it consolidates this data and presents a single view of patient information tailored to the needs of the healthcare professional.’
The Hitachi HealthXchange Module provides a scalable platform to archive digital medical images, electronic health records and associated data from the various healthcare systems such as PACS, Radiology Information System (RIS) and Healthcare Information Systems (HIS). Through the Mawell interface, users can quickly search, locate and retrieve patient data from the Hitachi archive, as needed. The archive also features automated policy management that allows healthcare organisations to comply with government regulations to ensure content authenticity, retention and integrity.
Hitachi HealthXchange Module is a fully integrated component of Hitachi’s Content Archive Platform (HCAP) and supports Hitachi Data Systems’ Services Oriented Storage Solutions (SOSS) approach to storage management.
Petri Morko, PR and marketing manager for Mawell, pointed out: ‘Electronic patient data is continuing to evolve and new storage-intensive formats, such as video and bio-signals, will ensure storage requirements grow exponentially. At the same time Hitachi’s leadership in storage and storage virtualisation perfectly complements our expertise in virtualised patient informatics.’
29.10.2008
