The next BriefingsDirect data center financing agility interview explores how two Belgian hospitals are
adjusting to dynamic healthcare economics to better compete and cooperate.
We
will now explore how a regional hospital seeking efficiency -- and a teaching
hospital seeking performance -- are meeting their unique requirements thanks
to modern IT architectures and innovative IT buying methods.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile app. Read a full transcript or download a copy.
Here to
help us understand the multilevel benefits of the new economics of composable infrastructure and
software defined data center (SDDC) in the fast-changing healthcare field are Filip Hens, Infrastructure
Manager at UZA Hospital in Antwerp, and Kim Buts,
Infrastructure Manager at Imelda Hospital
in Bonheiden, both in Belgium.The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.
Here are some excerpts:
In
Belgium, we have many hospitals, with some of them only a few kilometers apart.
Yet there have been very few interactions between them.
We are
now trying to buy new IT equipment together, because we cannot afford to each
buy for every kind of surgery, or for every kind of treatment. So we have
combined our budgets together and we are hosting different things in our
hospital that are then used by the other cluster members, too.
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: What are the top trends disrupting the healthcare industry in Belgium? Filip, why do
things need to change? Why do you need to have better IT infrastructure?
Hens: That’s a good
question. There are many up-and-coming trends. One is new regulations
around governance, which is quite important. Due to these new rules, we are
working more closely together with other hospitals to share more data, and
therefore need better data security. This is one of the main reasons that we
need to change.
 |
Hens |
New
demands around augmentation of services means patient data are a growing
concern. So it’s not only the needs of new governance but also the demand for
providing better medical services across hospitals.
Gardner: Kim, how are the
economics of healthcare -- of doing more with less -- an ongoing requirement?
How are you able to conserve on the costs?
Buts: We are trying to
do everything we can across the financial possibilities. We are constantly
looking for good solutions that are affordable. The obligation to work in a
[hospital] cluster provides us with a lot of new challenges.
A major
challenge for us was around security. We have invested hugely in security. Many
of the new applications are now shared across the hospital cluster. So we chose
to take on the role of innovator. And to continue innovating, we have to spend
a lot of money. That was not foreseen in the annual budget. So we took
advantage of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE’s) new financial services approaches, to make things happen much faster than usual.
Gardner: We’ll get back to
some of those services, but I’d like to help our readers and listeners better
understand this interesting combination of needing to compete -- that is to
attract patients -- but at the same time cooperate and share data across
hospital cluster. Filip, tell us about UZA and how you’re unique compared to a
regional hospital. What makes you different?
Sharing is caring, and saving
Hens: Our main focus
remains patient care, but for us it is not necessarily general medicine. It is
more the specialist cases, for such things as specialized surgery. That is our
main goal. Also we are a teaching hospital, so we have an emphasis on learning
from patients and from patient data.
Gardner:
You
have unique IT and big data requirements from your researchers. You have more
of an intense research and development environment, and that comes with a different set of IT
requirements?
Hens:
Yes,
and that is very important. We are more demanding of the quality of the data,
the need to gather more information, and to provide our researchers a better
infrastructure platform.
That is
one difference between a general hospital and a university hospital. A teaching
facility has more complex patient analytics requirements, the need for complex
data mining and stuff like that.
Gardner:
Kim,
how are you in your healthcare cluster now able to share and cooperate? What is
it that you’re sharing, and how do you that securely to creating better
healthcare outcomes?
Buts:
A
big difference for us is financial. Since we are a smaller hospital, we must
offer a very broad portfolio of treatments. That means we need to have a lot of
patients to then have enough income to survive. The broad offering, that
portfolio of treatments, also means we are going to need to work more together
with the other cluster members.
 |
| Buts |
Financially,
due to the regulations, we have less income than a university hospital. The
benefits of education funding do not get to us. We only get income from
patients, and that is why we need to have a broad portfolio.
Hens:
Unlike
a general hospital, we have income from the government and we also have an
income flow from scientific research. It is huge funding; it is a huge amount.
That is really what makes us different. That is why we need to use all of that
data, to elaborate on scientific research from the data.
If not an advantage, it is an extra benefit
that we have as university hospital. In the end, it is very important in that
we maintain and add extra business functionality via an updated IT
infrastructure.
If we
maintain those clusters well -- the general hospitals together with university
hospitals -- then those clusters can share among themselves how to best meet
patient needs, and concentrate on using the sparest amount of the budget.
Robust research, record keeping, required
Gardner: You are therefore
both trying to grapple with the use and sharing of electronic medical records (EMR) applications. Are you both upgrading to using a different system? How are
you going about the difficult task of improving and modernizing EMR?
Buts: One big difference
between our hospitals is our doctors; they are working for the hospital on a
self-employed basis at Imelda. They are not employees of the hospital as at
UZA. The demands of our doctors are therefore very high, so we have to improve
all of our facilities -- and our computer storage systems -- very fast.
We try
to innovate for the doctors, so we have to spend a lot of money on innovation.
That is a big difference, I think, between the university hospitals because the
doctors are employees there.
Gardner: How does that
impact your use of EMR systems?
Buts: We are in the
process of changing. We are looking for a new EMR system. We are discussing and
we are choosing, but the demands of the doctors are sometimes different from
the demands of the general hospital management.
Gardner: Filip, EMR, is
that something you are grappling with, too?
Hens: We did the same
evaluations and we have already chosen a new EMR. For us, implementing an EMR
is now all about consolidation of a very scattered data landscape, of moving
toward a centralized organization, and of centralizing databases for sharing
and optimization of that data.
There
is some pressure between what physicians want and what we as IT can deliver
with the EMR. Let’s just say it is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to
understand each other better, to know why they have high demands, and why we
have other demands.
That
comparison between the physicians and us IT guys makes it a challenging
landscape. We are busier with the business side and with full IT solutions,
rather than just implementing something.
It is
not just about implementing something new, but adaptation of a new structure of
people. Our people rethink how everybody’s role is changing in the hospital,
and what is needed for interaction with everybody. So, we are in the process of
that transformation.
Gardner: What is it about
the underlying IT infrastructure that is going to support the agility needed to
solve both of your sets of problems, even though they are somewhat different?
Filip,
tell us about what you have chosen for infrastructure and why composable infrastructure helps solve many these business-level challenges.
Composable confidence
Hens: That is a good
question, because choosing a solution is not like going to the supermarket and
just buy something. It is a complex process. We still have separation of data
storage and computing power.
We
still separate that kind of stuff because we want to concentrate on the things
that really bring added value, and that are also trustworthy. For us, that
means virtualization on the server and network platforms, to make it more
composable.
A more
software-defined and composable approach will make us more independent from the
underlying hardware. We have chosen for our data center the HPE Synergy
platform. In our opinion, we are ready because after many years as an HPE
customer -- it just works.
For
me, knowing that something is working is very important, but
understanding the pitfalls of a project is even more important.
And for
me, knowing that something is working is very important, but understanding the
pitfalls of a project is even more important. For me, the open discussion that
you can have with HPE about those pitfalls, of how to prepare for them and how
to adapt your people to know what’s to come in the future -- that is all very
important.
It’s
not only a decision about the metal, but also about what are the weaknesses in
the metal and how we can overcome that -- that is why we stick with HPE,
because we have a good relationship.
Gardner: Kim, what are you
doing to modernize, but also innovate around those all-important economic
questions? How are you using pay-as-you-go models to afford more complex
technology, and to give you advancement in serving your customers?
One-stop shopping
Buts: The obligations of
the new hospital-cluster regulations had a huge impact on our IT
infrastructure. We had to modernize. We needed more compute power and more
storage. When we began calculating, it showed us that replacing all of the hard
drives at one time was the best option, instead of
spreading it over the next three to four years.
Also
the new workload demands on the infrastructure meant we needed to replace it as
fast as possible, but the budget was not available at our hospitals. So HPE
Financial Services provided us with a solution that meant we could replace
all our equipment with very short notice. We exchanged servers, storage, and
our complete network, including our Wi-Fi network.
So we
actually started with a completely brand new data center thanks to the
financial services of HPE.
Gardner: How does that
financing work? Is that a pay-as-you-go, or are payments spread over time?
Buts:
It’s spread over the coming five years. That was the
only solution that was good for us. We could not afford to do it any other way.
Gardner: So that is more
like an operating costs budget than an upfront capital outlays budget?
Buts: Yes, and the other thing we wanted to do was do everything with HPE -- because they could offer us a complete range of servers, storage, and Wi-Fi networking. That way we could reduce the complexity of all our work, and it guaranteed us a fast return on the investment.
We
actually started with a completely brand new data center thanks to the
financial services of HPE. We could not afford to do it any other way.
Buts: Yes, and the other thing we wanted to do was do everything with HPE -- because they could offer us a complete range of servers, storage, and Wi-Fi networking. That way we could reduce the complexity of all our work, and it guaranteed us a fast return on the investment.
Gardner: It is all more
integrated, upfront.
Buts: Yes, that is
correct.
Gardner: At UZA, what are
you doing to even further modernize your infrastructure to accommodate more
data, research, sharing, and security?
Hens: It is not about
what I want to deliver; it is about what the business wants that we can
deliver, and what we can together deliver to the hospital. So, for me, the next
step is the EMR program.
So,
implementing the EMR, looking for the outcomes from it, and offering something
better to end-users. Then those outcomes can be used to further modernize the
infrastructure.
That
for me is the key. I will not necessarily say that we will buy more HPE
Synergy. For me, the key to the process, as I just described, that is what will
set the margins of what we will need.
Gardner: Kim, now that you
have a new data center, where do you take it next in terms of people, process
or even added technology efficiencies? Improved data and analytics, perhaps?
Cloud in the Cluster?
Buts: That is a difficult
one because the cluster is very new for us. We are still looking at good ways
to incorporate and decide where the data is going to be placed, and what
services are going to be required.
It is
still brand new for us, and we have to find a good way to incorporate it all
with the different hospital cluster members. A big issue is how are we going to
exchange the critical patient data, and how we are going to store it safely and
securely.
Gardner: Is cloud computing
going to be a part of that?
Buts: I do not know.
Everything is “cloud” now so, maybe. I am not a huge fan of public cloud. If
you can stay in a private cloud, yeah, then okay. But public cloud, I do not
know. In a hospital, regulations are so strong and the demands are so high.
Gardner: Maybe a shared
private cloud environment of some sort?
Buts: Yeah. I think that
could be a good solution.
Hens: For public cloud
in general, I think that is a no-go. But what we are doing already with our
EMR, we can work together with a couple of hospitals and we can choose to build
a private cloud at one of the sites at our hospitals.
You do
not need to define it as a cloud. Really, it’s like public Internet cloud, but
you have to make your IT cloud-aware and cloud-defined inside the walls of your
hospital. That is the first track you need to take.
Buts: That is why in our
hospital cluster, we chose to host a lot of new applications on the new
hardware. It gave us the ability to learn and adapt quickly to the new
innovations. And for the other hospitals, we are now becoming a kind of service
provider to them. That was for us a big change, because now we are more a
service level agreements (SLA)-driven organization than we used to be.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile app. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
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