Benefiting Healthcare Delivery Whitepaper

Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management White Paper May 2007 Abstract Helping to ensure that electronic records and documents are manageable, auditable, secure, and prepared for future interoperability is critical in helping healthcare providers to ensure the privacy of patient data. Sun Microsystems offers secure data management solutions designed to help meet this challenge. Sun Microsystems, Inc. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 3 Look to Sun .................................................................................................... 3 Featuring the most comprehensive disk storage lineup ..................................... 4 Consider the StorageTek 5800 Application-aware Storage Solution ......................... 4 A new solution for your challenges................................................................... 4 Enhanced reliability ........................................................................................ 5 Enhanced data access ..................................................................................... 5 Enhanced data integrity .................................................................................. 5 A new way to look at files ................................................................................ 6 The Power of Network-Attached Storage ............................................................... 6 Flexibility and rapid access to patient data ....................................................... 6 Proven cost-effectiveness................................................................................. 6 Unbroken data availability and disaster recovery .............................................. 7 Featuring Compliance Archiving Software ............................................................. 7 Simplifying Storage with StorageTek Storage Archive Manager .............................. 7 Providing Flexible Storage with Lifecycle Management.......................................... 8 Get a Practical, Proven Solution ........................................................................... 9 Sun Is the Vendor You Can Rely On ....................................................................... 9 Look to the storage experts ........................................................................... 10 For more information .................................................................................... 10 About Sun Microsystems, Inc. ........................................................................ 10 3 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. Chapter 1 Introduction As a healthcare provider, employing a data management solution that can enhance your operation is key to your success. You need an efficient solution that can reduce the high cost and inefficiencies in delivering patient care and processing claims. Yet the solution must also be safe, minimizing medical errors often caused by manual data management solutions that have a high degree of human intervention. Additionally, the solution needs to be secure so you can meet official mandates that require secure storage of and access to patient information. Ensuring that electronic records and documents are manageable, auditable, and secure is critical in enabling healthcare providers to protect the privacy of patient data. Equally important, the solution should be interoperable and built on open standards — a solution that can protect your current technology investment and accommodate new technology down the road. Look to Sun Sun Microsystems delivers a complete, end-to-end, secure storage archiving solution. This solution provides you with access to software, disks, tapes, services, and support, and is one of the most cost-efficient solutions designed to adapt and scale with your specific needs. The Sun solution offers: • Increased efficiency, reduced cost, and less chance of data-management caused medical errors, by implementing a filmless digital image management solution • Secure storage that helps meet business and regulatory compliance efforts • Reduced costs associated with storage and retrieval of healthcare data and images, helping to maximize return on investment (ROI) from IT budget and infrastructure • Reduced time to access patient information • Improved patient care and reduced medical risks • Help with compliance regarding regulations and local, regional, and national initiatives, such as the National Health Information Network (NHIN), Canada Health Infoway, and others 4 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. Featuring the most comprehensive disk storage lineup Sun’s disk storage portfolio is virtually unmatched in the industry. It is designed to deliver one of the leading storage solutions, addressing a wide range of customer usage models, price/performance requirements, and data availability challenges. Sun’s solution offers: • Sun StorageTek™ 5800 system • Sun StorageTek 5000 Series NAS Appliances, featuring Sun StorageTek Compliance Archiving Software • Sun™ Archive Manager, which provides for a long-term, futureproof archive • Sun StorageTek modular and capacity disks, including Sun StorageTek 6140 and Sun StorageTek 6540 disk arrays, and Fiber Channel and serial-ATA (SATA) disk technology • Sun StorageTek tape offerings, including the Sun StorageTek SL500, Sun StorageTek L700e, and Sun StorageTek SL8500 tape libraries with LTO and Sun StorageTek T9840, Sun StorageTek T9940, and Sun StorageTek T10000 tape drives • Network Equipment Building System (NEBS)/MilSpec certifications on various storage components to help ensure long-term investment protection • Sun Java™ System Portal Server • Sun Java Availability Suite • Sun Java Communications Suite • Sun Professional Services (e.g., Provider and Patient Portal) • Sun UltraSPARC® and x64/x86 servers • Sun’s secure Solaris™ Operating System (OS) Chapter 2 Consider the StorageTek 5800 Application-aware Storage Solution The Sun StorageTek 5800 system is an application-aware storage system, representing a new category of storage. It allows applications such as the picture archiving and communications system (PACS) to be more efficiently deployed by leveraging compute resources inside the storage environment. Data integrity and failure tolerance are improved over other storage system designs, and there are sophisticated mechanisms available for finding and organizing data among hundreds of millions of files. A new solution for your challenges Managing the exponential growth in volume of structured and unstructured data in your hospital or clinic can be a Herculean task. You need a solution that is always online, that scales transparently on demand to hundreds of terabytes, that has better data integrity and failure tolerance than traditional RAID systems — one that provides healthcare clients mechanisms for finding and organizing data among hundreds of millions of files. But the solution also needs to have a lower price tag than conventional disk solutions. 5 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. The Sun StorageTek 5800 system is designed to meet the specific needs of medical imaging and information technology practitioners by addressing the demanding nature of healthcare information protection and retrieval. The Sun StorageTek 5800 system starts with a new concept for finding and organizing data. Rather than offering a static path/file name semantic, an embedded metadata system is provided. This system accommodates application-specific schemas, delivers excellent data integrity and scalability, and provides a high-performance query mechanism for applications to find data. The metadata solution also supports a virtual file system interface and rich information lifecycle management (ILM). Enhanced reliability The Sun StorageTek 5800 architecture is a low-cost, load-balanced symmetric cluster of x64/SATA server nodes that accommodates horizontal scaling from 10 terabytes to one petabyte or more. Scaling features include automated capacity balancing and the ability to refresh component technologies. The system’s low-cost parallel architecture is designed to be self-healing in the event of failure, lessening the urgency for component replacement and greatly simplifying managment. Multiple simultaneous failures are supported and data recovery is accelerated through parallelism. Enhanced data access The Sun StorageTek 5800 system provides one Ethernet uplink to the customer LAN (via a single virtual IP address for data transactions) and another uplink for management. Data ingest is accomplished primarily through a programmatic application programing interface (API) using either Java or C libraries. The Sun StorageTek 5800 software development kit (SDK) is available upon request. When a data object, and optionally its associated metadata, is stored into the system, the system issues an assured unique identifier, or object indentifier (OID), value for the healthcare customer to use for later retrieval. As an option, applications can ignore the OID and simply issue a query against the metadata to find files. Queries are issued via the API and are executed in parallel across a high reliability in-memory index. In response, the Sun StorageTek 5800 system will provide a list of OIDs and/or metadata values to the client application. Enhanced data integrity With the Sun StorageTek 5800 system, data integrity is improved through checksum auditing mechanisms and the prevention of data modification. The system also supports retention-time directives by helping to ensure that images and records cannot be deleted before their expiration dates. 6 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. A new way to look at files The Sun StorageTek 5800 system provides limited file system access for a human interface or naive applications with no API awareness. The presented file systems are virtual hierarchical structures that are derived from an administrator-specified list of metadata fields. This powerful virtual-view capability allows individual files to reside in an indefinite number of “file systems,” with arbitrary path structures that can be created on demand for different applications or system users. Chapter 3 The Power of Network-Attached Storage Designed to support IT environments that may employ many different server vendors, the StorageTek™ NAS appliance family simplifies file sharing among disparate platforms and departments. It also offers optional software to address patient healthcare information protection and retention. Flexibility and rapid access to patient data The additional storage capacity demanded by electronic medical record (EMR) applications and PACS is significant: computerization is contributing to the growth of content at 30 percent per year. Sun’s NAS solutions can help consolidate medical record data onto a single disk-based system that offers immense scalability — from two to 224 terabytes in a single system — plus fast access to records from anywhere on the network, in any department, subject to authorization of access. Sun’s StorageTek NAS portfolio provides cost-saving opportunities and flexibility through the use of both SATA disk storage (ideal for archiving patient information) and Fibre Channel (FC) disk storage (higher performance — ideal for data that is accessed more frequently). The right storage for the right data can improve competitiveness and help ensure appropriate use of ever-tighter IT dollars. Proven cost-effectiveness Sun offers a low total cost of ownership (TCO) measured over a three-to-five year period that is virtually unmatched by any major NAS appliance vendor. With support for quotas, Sun can help you assign storage limits to departments or projects, and charge them back accordingly. Your ability to see where storage resources are being used helps you with both accountability and budgeting. 7 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. Unbroken data availability and disaster recovery When records are no longer stored in a filing cabinet but rather on disk, you need to pay extra attention to protecting them from corruption and unauthorized deletion. Your data is well-protected with the help of the Sun’s StorageTek 5000 Series NAS Appliances. These systems support replication to a second NAS system for disaster recovery or backup to write once, read many (WORM) tape to tie into your existing backup infrastructure. In addition, StorageTek Compliance Archiving Software provides nonerasable, nonrewritable NAS disk areas and retention policy enforcement for patient records that must be preserved for long periods of times. Chapter 4 Featuring Compliance Archiving Software The Sun StorageTek Compliance Archiving System, a combination of a StorageTek NAS Appliance and activated StorageTek Compliance Archiving Software, allows you to dynamically store data on magnetic disk in WORM format, which is nonrewritable and nonerasable. StorageTek Compliance Archiving Software is preinstalled on all Sun NAS Appliances. The ability to simply activate the software with a license key allows you to easily add the compliance features whenever they are required. When a client application designates that a file must be retained and not modified, the StorageTek Compliance Archiving System specifies that the file will be immutable for the duration of its designated retention period. From inside or outside the application, no content or critical metadata attributes of these WORM files can be changed by administrators or other people with root accounts. Any attempt to do so is recorded as an auditable event in an immutable audit log. Robust security features such as the audit logs, user authentication, a secure clock, and access controls combine to help safeguard the integrity of vital patient records. The StorageTek Compliance Archiving System also supports a mix of WORM-protected files and regular read-write files, offering greater flexibility for storing regular office files on the same system if desired. Chapter 5 Simplifying Storage with StorageTek Storage Archive Manager Another advantage of choosing Sun for your data management solution is Sun’s StorageTek Storage Archive Manager software. It provides data classification, centralized metadata management, policy-based data placement, protection, migration, long-term retention, and recovery to help you effectively manage and utilize data according to business requirements. 8 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. With StorageTek Storage Archive Manager, organizations can reduce the cost of storing vast data repositories. The software provides a powerful, easily managed, cost-effective way to access, retain, and protect business data over its entire lifecycle. This self-protecting file system offers continuous backup and fast recovery features to help enhance productivity and improve resource utilization. StorageTek Storage Archive Manager software reduces operating costs by providing data classification and customer policy-driven data movement across tiers of storage. It unlocks the value of previously untapped archived corporate data by providing rapid access and a consistent view across tiered storage. It also supports IT governance and compliance with access logging and WORM support. StorageTek Storage Archive Manager delivers an open format for enhanced flexibility and long-term accessibility of data as well as a futureproof solution. StorageTek Storage Archive Manager has data migration features built in, so when the next generation of storage systems is introduced, Storage Archive Manager has the ability to support the old and the new storage. StorageTek Storage Archive Manager includes: • Active tiering — a powerful, easily managed, and cost-saving way to implement active storage tiering • Fixed content archiving — enables tiered archiving solutions with performance and capacity customized to the specific needs of the fixed content application • Regulatory compliance archiving — can be used as part of a policy-driven data management strategy to meet industry-specific information retention regulations Additional healthcare archive needs can be met with a single StorageTek Storage Archive Manager archive system. This may include email archiving (with appropriate email archive software). Chapter 6 Providing Flexible Storage with Lifecycle Management Electronic health records consume huge amounts of storage and require extended retention periods. This creates an ideal opportunity to employ an ILM strategy to maximize resources. Sun’s complete portfolio of storage systems and supporting software helps you to control and manage comprehensive electronic health records throughout the lifecycle — from the time the information enters your system to the time it is archived or deleted (if appropriate). With Sun’s storage solutions, there’s no need to worry about a lack of integration across clinical solutions — or the challenges that an independent manual system creates when you attempt to achieve regulatory compliance with stringent data accessibility and disaster recovery requirements. Sun’s solutions help you manage exponential growth in volume of data and related increases in data storage management costs. 9 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. The Sun solution with ILM strategy includes: • StorageTek Storage Archive Manager, which provides for a long-term, futureproof archive • StorageTek modular and capacity disks; for example, the StorageTek 6140 array with SATA disk technology • StorageTek tape offerings, including the StorageTek SL500, StorageTek L700e, and StorageTek SL8500 tape libraries with LTO and StorageTek T9840, StorageTek T9940, and StorageTek T10000 tape drives • Sun Professional Services (e.g., Provider and Patient Portal) • Sun Java System Portal Server • Sun Java Availability Suite • Sun Java Communications Suite • Sun UltraSPARC and x64/x86 servers • Sun’s secure Solaris OS This solution is also integrated with leading PACS and other healthcare applications. Chapter 7 Get a Practical, Proven Solution Numerous hospitals and clinics across the country have implemented a Sun storage solution to enhance their operation. For example, a 363-bed medical facility in Kentucky implemented one of Sun’s solutions. The solution helped the facility accomplish all of the following: • Consolidate storage residing in disparate silos in medical departments and other functional areas • Simplify the administration of the storage infrastructure • Build in flexibility and adaptability • Ensure timely, secure, and highly available access to medical images • Maximize the value of the facility’s storage investment through high utilization. Less time is now spent on routine management tasks. Patient care, staff productivity, and regulatory compliance have been enhanced. And the facility projects capital savings of $400K over five years compared to its nearest competitor. The facility has upgraded its original solution, which included the StorageTek SL500 modular library system, to the StorageTek SL8500 modular library system with StorageTek Storage Archive Manager and StorageTek ACSLS Manager software. Chapter 8 Sun Is the Vendor You Can Rely On When you are dealing with sensitive medical data, you need to trust your storage vendor as you would a partner. Sun has more than 35 years of experience with mission-critical data management. In addition, more than one-third of the world’s archived data is stored on Sun systems. 10 Benefiting Healthcare Delivery with Secure Data Management Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun partners with leading healthcare vendors to provide you with complete solutions. Our portfolio includes identity management solutions that can help you enable compliant access control. We also offer one of the most advanced operating systems in the world, a broad range of middleware, and the one of the fastest and most energy-efficient servers among those that can run several major operating systems. In addition, we offer remote managed services for 24x7 monitoring and management of your systems. Look to the storage experts Sun StorageTek service professionals help you address storage challenges by delivering integrated services and solutions that optimize and manage storage performance over the life of your data. Our recognized, world-class service and customer care give you confidence that your technology investment is protected and that your business will be responsive to change. We can help you pinpoint opportunities to reduce costs, mitigate business risk, and better leverage information assets. Our consulting and managed services offer clear and simple choices in solutions that address your regulatory concerns, complex storage growth, resource management, and scalability challenges. Covering more than 125 countries, our dedicated storage service professionals can help you gain and sustain measurable results with the reliability and flexibility that you require. For more information To learn more about Sun identity management for healthcare, visit sun.com/healthcare. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer”™ — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at sun.com. Sun Microsystems, Inc. 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA Phone 1-650-960-1300 or 1-800-555-9SUN (9786) Web sun.com © 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, Solaris, StorageTek, and The Network is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Information subject to change without notice. Printed in USA 06/07 SunWIN # 503238 Lit. Part # INWP12679-0