Hospital Experiences Substantial Improvement to VDI and EHR Infrastructure

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – July 1, 2020 — Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG), the IT pioneer that delivers storage as-a-service in a multi-cloud world, announced today that the Children’s of Alabama hospital chose Pure Storage as the organization’s data solution to ensure that nurses, doctors, practitioners, as well as administrative and support staff have immediate access to mission-critical applications. This implementation helped to greatly reduce log-in times for clinical applications and optimize the time that they spend caring for patients. 

Last year, Children’s of Alabama provided care for children from 46 states and seven countries, handling more than 675,000 out-patient visits and 15,000 inpatient admissions, while also housing the pediatric program of the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB).

“Data isn’t just mission-critical. It is inherent to our mission,” stated Bob Sarnecki, Chief Information Officer of Children’s of Alabama. “The information we keep, process and put in front of our physicians and medical team not only provides the basis for evidence-based care, the data is the basis of decisions that can change the life of a child forever.”  

The hospital’s IT infrastructure required a major update, which included the selection of new vendors for compute, storage and networking solutions. Its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) – used by some 3,000 clinicians throughout the day, with about half that number accessing the Allscripts electronic health record (EHR) system at any one time – was experiencing insufficient storage performance, which resulted in delayed log-in times. 

Children’s of Alabama evaluated several vendors and chose Pure Storage. It quickly migrated its entire VDI to the new platforms. The speed of access to all the critical clinical applications improved drastically, with VDI log-in improving from two-to-five minutes, down to just 20 seconds. In addition, 100 percent uptime of the Pure systems has helped to keep access to critical patient data up and running 24/7. These improvements enable physicians to spend more time with patients which helps improve outcomes.

Pure Storage solutions also help to improve the amount of attention that doctors can give to patients. One of the most common procedures performed at the hospital is to insert ear tubes, with surgeons taking about three minutes per ear. The previous system required each surgeon to spend 10 minutes entering documentation for what had been a six-minute procedure. The new VDI and EHR infrastructure from Pure cut documentation time in half, allowing surgeons to perform one-or-two additional procedures per shift. 

“Children’s of Alabama is laser-focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for its patients. Technology and data are essential to that mission. Mission-critical healthcare IT systems must be available 24/7 and performing optimally – putting lifesaving information at the fingertips of healthcare professionals and enabling them to focus on what they do best, care for patients,” said Josh Gluck, Vice President of Global Healthcare Technology Strategy at Pure Storage.

Reasons for Choosing Pure Storage 

Pure’s Evergreen™ Storage program – a 100 percent non-disruptive product architecture with a flexible buying program designed to free customers from the legacy storage approach – served as a major factor in Children’s of Alabama’s decision-making process. 

“With Evergreen, we could purchase a framework in which we could add storage for more than three years and avoid a forklift upgrade,” said Sarnecki. 

In addition to the benefits that came with Evergreen Storage, Sarnecki also values the relationship that has been built with Pure. “While the key benefits of Pure Storage solutions – performance, 100 percent uptime, ease of management, a superior long-term return on investment, and the elimination of forklift upgrades – played an important role, our relationship with Pure continues to be key,” he adds.

To learn more about how Children’s of Alabama is improving patient care through technology, check out the video with CIO Bob Sarnecki or visit the blog.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG) gives technologists their time back. Pure delivers a modern data experience that empowers organizations to run their operations as a true, automated, storage as-a-service model seamlessly across multiple clouds. One of the fastest-growing enterprise IT companies in history, Pure helps customers put data to use while reducing the complexity and expense of managing the infrastructure behind it. And with a certified customer satisfaction score in the top one percent of B2B companies, Pure's ever-expanding list of customers are among the happiest in the world.

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