The joint solution addresses one of the major data management challenges currently facing hospitals all over the world, namely the upsurge in healthcare data resulting primarily from the increasing volume of medical images (created across a range of modalities, from digital radiology to mammography, to name a few) as well as the adoption of the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and the move to a paperless environment (including the retroactive scanning of historical patient information).
The Medical Archive integrates the data from disparate clinical and administrative systems into a central, scalable repository that wholly understands healthcare data types and standards. Not only does this make interoperability easier across hospital applications, but it radically simplifies the protection and security of digital information. Furthermore, hospitals can dramatically reduce the data management burden in terms of both resource and cost.
"The Medical Archive solution that we [BridgeHead and Dell] bring embodies our collective ethos of supporting and underpinning the Electronic Patient Record and empowering IT at healthcare organisations of all sizes to meet their growing storage needs without compromising on current hardware brand or media type," said Tony Cotterill, CEO of BridgeHead Software.
He added, "We realised in our early discussions with Dell that there was a meeting of minds. We're delighted to be partnering with an organisation that takes healthcare as seriously as we do. We both recognised that hospitals have significant challenges when it comes to the management and storage of data. Our aim was to provide a cost effective, future-proof solution that simplified the data management and storage process while providing robust content protection and security, as well as increasing operational efficiencies that positively affect patient care. We couldn't be happier as our Medical Archive solution does exactly that."
Brett Roscoe, worldwide marketing lead for Dell Enterprise Storage, commented: "We continue to see an exponential growth of storage in healthcare where more and more information is being stored digitally. Organisations require integrated hardware and software solutions that enable them to efficiently store, manage and discover their digital content. Working with Bridgehead Software, we are able to offer customers our storage platform with an industry-leading medical archiving solution from a proven information management leader."
The underlying technology for the joint solution consists of BH MediStore and BH OfficeStore from BridgeHead and the DX6000 Object Storage Platform from Dell.
BridgeHead Software, founded by Cotterill in 1994, is among Dell's first 12 ISV partners and also counts among the very few that have succeeded in gaining certification with the Dell DX6000 Object Storage Platform.
This joint storage and data management solution is available for purchase immediately. Interested healthcare IT professionals are invited to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (if in the United States) or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (if in the United Kingdom) for more information.
About BridgeHead Software
BridgeHead Software, the Healthcare Storage Virtualization (HSV) company, offers a scalable, future-proof platform to overcome rising data volumes and increasing storage costs while delivering peace of mind around the access, availability and protection of critical electronic patient data.
Trusted by more than 1,000 hospitals worldwide, BridgeHead Software solves healthcare organisations' backup, recovery and archiving challenges. BridgeHead's HSV solutions are designed to operate with any hospital's chosen software applications and storage hardware, regardless of vendor. This presents healthcare organisations with more choice, flexibility and control over the way data is accessed, protected and managed. The net effect - better utilisation of hardware resources and, more importantly, the efficient distribution, availability and use of vital healthcare data.
To learn more about BridgeHead Software, visit www.bridgeheadsoftware.com.
About Healthcare Storage Virtualization (HSV)
Healthcare Storage Virtualization is a technology platform that decouples software applications from the physical storage hardware on which the application data resides. By separating these applications from the storage device/s, healthcare organisations have a lot more choice, flexibility and control over the way data is accessed, protected and managed. The net effect - better utilisation of hardware resources and, more importantly, the efficient access and use of critical electronic patient data.
HSV allows healthcare organisations to take ownership of their data even though it may reside on disparate software and hardware systems. Being vendor-agnostic, BridgeHead HSV has the ability to interface with any storage platform intelligently, creating better and broader availability of content as well as prohibiting unwanted access and providing comprehensive disaster recovery capability.
In addition, BridgeHead HSV technology offers powerful connectivity to all storage media types. As part of its advanced data protection and archiving features, HSV allows files to be transformed (e.g. compressed and de-duplicated) invisibly in the background, irrespective of media type and functionality, vastly reducing the capacity required across the storage real estate and often delaying the need for hardware upgrades.
Finally, BridgeHead's focus on healthcare lies at the heart of HSV. Consequently, all of the common native standards found within healthcare IT are supported e.g. HL7, DICOM XDS style interfaces etc. This support allows speedy integration of the HSV solution resulting in a more rapid return on investment.