Chong Hua hospital taps HP to upgrade IT infra

CEBU, Philippines - More data was generated in the last two years than from the beginning of time until the year 2010, experts say, and this in turn has prompted many public and private entities to seek ways on how to ensure that their data remain well-kept and secured.

Healthcare industry leader Chong Hua Hospital is no exemption.

In an attempt to address a myriad of issues challenging the hospital industry from rapidly expanding volumes of imaging data and regulatory compliance, the hospital has recently announced its partnership with Hewlett-Packard (HP) in an investment that seeks to modernize their information technology (IT) infrastructure.

Officials from HP Philippines said HP is the best positioned IT infrastructure partner to help the industry grapple with the aforementioned challenges.

The infrastructure, which uses a 3PAR system, allows Chong Hua Hospital to save large amounts of X-ray images, among others, and even videos all in digitized format.

HP officials characterized the infrastructure as simple, efficient and adaptable: simple, in that it removes worry and reduce administrative overhead with hassle-free, pre-tested solutions that work straight out of the box and efficient, because it enables higher medical staff productivity and reduce costs with automatic data movement technology that balances short-term image caching and long-term archiving.

They said it is adaptable since it is a flexible, pay-as-you-grow solutions allowing to start small and scale massively without downtime.

HP calls this system the Converged Medical Infrastructure and Chong Hua is the first hospital in Cebu to tap its services to improve its systems.

Officials from the leading multinational IT corporation said, however, that they are also presently negotiating with other hospitals in Cebu, both public and private, to host the same kind of system within their operations, depending on their needs.

For instance, similar negotiations are underway with a public hospital in Davao.

HP has been offering similar storage systems to other industries, even to the government.

At the press conference yesterday, HP and Chong Hua refused to divulge the amount of the investment cost for the medical infrastructure, although Chong Hua officials have clarified that the investment does not necessarily translate to higher hospital charges.

Apart from providing software backing, the IT giant has been also supplying Chong Hua with its hardware supply needs.

This new partnership between HP and Chong Hua was in cooperation with Ng Khai Development Corporation. (FREEMAN)