Cardiovascular Associates needed to ensure that their physicians could always see the patients who need them when they need them, regardless of inevitable equipment failures, due to power outages or even more serious unexpected events. CVA knows that a patient's health or even his or her life can depend on reliable access to patient data. Ethical and regulatory requirements mean that critical medical records information must be protected regardless of the state of the system or facilities. And yet at the same time the very nature of more sophisticated modern medicine means the size and amount of this information is growing at an exponential rate. Patient records are no longer just hand-written notes and copies of lab sheets; they now include tens or even hundreds of megabytes of digital radiology images, studies, and test results. The critical nature of electronic medical records and the need to ensure they "live on" mean that all possible failure points must be eliminated.
To protect the CVA core databases, InLine implemented a Microsoft SQL Server cluster in which two servers with identical configurations ensure that mission critical database applications will always be there when called upon, even if one server fails completely. To further protect the data a centralized InStor Storage Area Network (SAN) utilizing iSCSI technology was implemented to provide centralized storage of all data. InStor takes advantage of the relatively new iSCSI technology brought to market last year that dramatically lowers the cost of implementing Storage Area Networks and brings the efficiency and advanced capability of SAN technology within the reach of many more businesses. This flexible and easy to manage storage enabled CVA to start with four Terabytes of available space and grow as their needs increased. With upgrade costs of less than half of the competitor's older technology, CVA can now afford to mirror two SANs at their core location, building a mission critical infrastructure up to the task of a critical care facility with no single point of failure.
Once you have that much data you face another challenge---protecting and backing it up. As data stores grow into the 3-5 Terabyte range, studies show a corresponding drop in the integrity of the tape backup efforts. To ensure mission critical records are secure, CVA elected to replicate their patients' electronic medical records to a secure offsite location. Because of our unique resources, InLine was able to offer CVA two options for protecting their data. CVA could either co-locate the data at InLine's 3rd generation data center or InLine could help CVA implement a disaster recovery site in one of their own remote offices. CVA chose to use their own facilities, and another InStor unit was added with real time replication of the data from the primary site. This means that before a patient leaves the CVA offices his or her test results and all the critical data is seamlessly replicated to a secure facility across town, protected from any event that might render the primary facility unavailable.
InLine's InStor technology is scalable to handle the challenges of any size business. If you have multiple servers and data that needs to be protected, InLine can custom design a solution for your business, just like we did for CVA, ensuring that your critical business data is available when you need it.
"I've relied on InLine for more than 10 years to provide technology solutions that work" said Eric Two Bears, CVA's CIO/CSO. "We run our business on this platform, and there is no room for error in the medical arena. I have seen their expertise and their resources deliver when I had to have it."