IBM Aims to Transform Health Care IT, From Disaster Relief to Genetics

IBM is helping transform the health care IT industry with innovative servers and services. by Darryl K. Taft

The university turned to IBM to develop and deploy a high-performance computing system called Pegasus, pictured above, to efficiently perform these complex calculations and analyses. Built with an advanced Intel CPU, the Pegasus solution is five times faster and more powerful than its predecessor, with the ability to perform 160 trillion floating-point operations per second, speeding the university’s research and the advances in medicine that will result. Pegasus also supports the university’s climate, hurricane and oceanographic research programs. Additionally, the IBM technology lifted the University of Miami onto the top 500 supercomputing list.

The Chilean Red Cross (Cruz Roja Chilena) implemented an innovative cloud-based disaster and resource management solution, supported by IBM System x3250 M3 servers running Linux, that provides online collaboration tools and Web 2.0 capabilities—enabling employees and volunteers to synchronize relief efforts and respond to crises faster, exchange information using any type of device, and to help mobilize rescue specialists and first-aid items swiftly.

Through the use of big data analytics, the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine conducts research to identify the genetic basis of diseases and drug response. The university implemented a big data platform from IBM, including PureSystems and PureData Systems for analytics, which has enabled clinicians to cut research timelines from nearly a year to a few weeks to help accelerate the pace of discovery and, ultimately, improve patient health.

Unità Locale Socio Sanitaria 20 Verona (ULSS 20 Verona), a public health care provider in Verona, Italy, serves more than 400,000 people across 36 municipalities. The company improved its ability to deliver quality care by transforming their infrastructure with IBM Flex System x240, providing always-on access to critical medical data.

Wissenschaftliches Institut der AOK (WIdO) is the research institute of AOK, Germany’s largest statutory health insurance fund. WIdO collects and analyzes clinical data from millions of patients, 2,000 hospitals, 140,000 mobile medics and 20,000 pharmacies. System x3850 X5 servers for big data analysis have helped shorten analysis times, enable the processing of more complex analytical tasks and expand the institute’s reach in multidisciplinary, geographically broad studies.

Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital (SCHUH) in South Korea wanted to make X-ray and MRI scans available to physicians more quickly. To achieve this, the hospital implemented an integrated medical records system, powered by System x3650 M3 servers. Today, the hospital prepares scan data for physicians 95 percent faster, and all medical records, MRI scans and payment systems are hosted at a single data center.

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) implemented IBM System x3850 X5 and IBM BladeCenter HX5 servers to support its financial and clinical transaction environment and virtualization efforts. The System x implementation allows MUSC to scale as needed as the university grows, while continuing to provide enhanced patient care through real-time information access.

Dutch health care provider HagaZiekenhuis (Haga) needed to replace its aging IT infrastructure, so they acquired a virtualized, mirrored technology based on IBM System x3650 M3, x3850 X5 and Power 750 Systems server and IBM storage technology, which has cut maintenance costs by 20 percent and floor space requirements by 40 percent. The hospital no longer experiences unplanned outages and handles a 300 percent growth in transaction volumes.

IBM System x3850 and x3650 servers have helped Inland Northwest Health Services (INHS) improve its cloud-based electronic health record services for 40 hospitals and 750 physicians. With nearly 95 percent of INHS’ 1,200 servers now virtualized, IBM’s comprehensive data center technology has doubled end-user performance, reduced physical space requirements by 28 percent and increased storage capacity.