Case Study Gunma University Hospital

server that hosts the hospital’s electronic medical records system, and for the internal memory of all client terminals. The hospital also decided to improve network performance for the accelerated storage platform. “By connecting backend servers, the existing 1 Gbps metal network could be upgraded to 10 Gbps optical fiber, which hugely boosts transmission speed,” explained Torikai. “We have additionally employed FTTD for outpatient and other terminals that require a particularly high processing performance during busy times by directly connecting the terminals to the server with 10 Gbps optical fiber.” To realize enhanced availability and operational continuity, NEC proposed a combination of highly successful solutions. “The solution we adopted uses the Oracle Database clustering feature RAC (Real Application Clusters) to realize higher operational continuity than our existing active-standby configuration” said Torikai. “The solution also uses the Oracle Database ActiveDataGuard feature which implements real-time storage synchronization with a reference system. In the event of a system failure, storage operations fail over to this reference system, providing us with a robust backup mechanism.” NEC’s EXPRESSCLUSTER X middleware product was deployed to provide monitoring and operations functionality for the system’s operating environment. Based on a rich menu of monitoring options, EXPRESSCLUSTER X constantly monitors the operating status of the Oracle Database and sends alerts when problems occur. NEC Storage M510 with a RAID10 configuration was also employed to enhance the performance, restoration speed, and resilience of the SSD storage. “If you think in terms of response, there are two drawbacks to the widely used RAID6,” explained Torikai. “The first is that a striping operation is required to generate parity when writing data. Secondly, the long time required for reprocessing during recovery affects the responsiveness. RAID10, on the other hand, leverages the speed of RAID1, since data is written directly without arithmetic processing, and the responsiveness and fast recovery features of SSD and RAID0.” The PHS phones that all staff had been using were replaced with smartphones that provided voice call and nurse call functionality, as well as labor-saving work apps. In addition, by linking the e-mail feature that was built in to the electronic medical record system (“Communicate” function), it became possible to provide notifications of emergency response for exceptional results of medical tests and instantly share important information. Meeting these needs with a hardware-based solution was the key issue for this system overhaul.” Regional core hospitals require high levels of operational continuity. The existing system used server clustering for redundancy and was operated in an active-standby configuration, but these systems can take time to fail over when a failure occurs. The hospital wanted to improve operational continuity while increasing system speeds. Another challenge was that the existing servers required a certain period of time to restart during server maintenance since they were based on HDD storage. Moreover, doctors, nurses and administrative staff were using the personal handy phone system (PHS; a simplified mobile phone system standard developed in Japan) to communicate with each other. PHS can be used for voice calls, but it does not support text messaging, creating an obstacle to accurate communication between hospital staff. There was also the problem that urgent medical data recorded in the electronic medical record system could only be accessed from special terminals. The hospital’s aim was to build a hospital information management system that would become a world standard for future generations. They therefore decided to completely overhaul the existing system configuration and design a new architecture that would integrate the hospital information management system (server infrastructure) with the networks and peripheral equipment. After considering proposals from multiple vendors, Gunma University Hospital chose NEC Group’s proposal based on the company’s strengths in all three fields—server infrastructure, networking, and peripherals. “As the company in charge of maintaining and operating our current electronic medical record and medical accounting systems, we have had frequent contact with NEC staff, both sales reps and engineers, who often come to the hospital to find out what kinds of problems we were facing and to provide technical support,” said Kota Torikai. “NEC’s familiarity with our systems helped them to come up with a proposal that met our needs.”