Mainline provides Parkview Health a secure healthcare compliant solution that increases IT efficiency and performance.

Health care delivery systems in the United States have undergone tremendous changes in the past decade.

New and emerging technologies in procedures, devices, tests, drugs, imaging equipment and information access have changed patterns of care as well as the sites where care is provided. To keep up-to-date with these changes and to improve access to healthcare for the people in the northeast Indiana region, Parkview Health, a community-based not-for-profit health system, with eight hospitals and a network of primary care and specialty physicians, is building a $536 million regional medical center. Construction of this nine-story regional facility on the Parkview North Campus in Fort Wayne is expected to be completed in 2011. It will include a 430-bed hospital and multiple specialty centers, including heart, cancer, women's and children's services, orthopedics and neurology.

In line with the Parkview's vision to provide cost effective and quality care using information technology to meet the community's health needs, the Parkview North Campus also includes a new IT data center. For today's healthcare providers, data storage needs are enormous because of the need to store test results, patient interactions, medicines prescribed and administered, lab results, billing records and insurance claims. And to comply with HIPAA regulations, this data must be stored for seven years.

The Challenge

Paul Jones, Parkview Health's Director of IT, was challenged with updating the current system and moving it to the new facility. Parkview needed a cost-effective data storage system with high capacity and flexibility to accommodate rapid growth, while assuring security and privacy. To further rein in IT costs, Jones needed to upgrade an out-of-date mainframe to take advantage of the latest data storage features for better performance. He also wanted to make the migration seamless to Parkview's 7,500 employees.

Jones called Mainline Information Systems^®, an IBM Premier Business Partner from whom he had purchased the IBM z9 BC server three years back. The account executive put together a team of experts to assess Parkview's current configuration and requirements, and performed several tests. The recommended solution included: IBM XIV Storage System, an IBM SAN Volume Controller, an IBM Network Attached Storage, an IBM z10 BC with two IFL specialty engines, and Mainline Professional Services.

The Solution

IBM XIV^® Storage System is a next-generation high-end, open disk storage system that provides Tier-1 performance and functionality for a Tier-2 price, using fully virtualized grid architecture. Customers see significant cost savings from the use of standard components in the grid architecture and in the simplified administration and advanced function software, which is included at no additional cost. The system software includes an intuitive management console that automatically optimizes resource utilization of all the components within the system, which can allow for easier management and configuration and improved performance and data availability.

IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC) provides low-cost storage, advanced migration capabilities, centralized storage and administration, increased storage utilization and improved application availability. It enables a tiered storage environment to match the cost of storage to the value of the data.

IBM System Storage N6000, Network Attached Storage (NAS) unlocks the full potential of virtualized servers, providing excellent performance with high bandwidth, 64-bit architecture and the latest IO technologies. The IBM System Storage N6000 provides impressive scalability and flexibility, as well as highly efficient storage utilization that make it possible to dramatically reduce power, cooling, and space demands.

IBM System z10 Business Class (z10BC) is a resilient, responsive, energy-efficient enterprise server that provides the capabilities to run existing and new applications, and consolidate existing applications. It was selected because of its superior reliability, availability, security, connectivity and scalability, along with its advanced virtualization technologies, which provide improved security, hardware independence and added resource management features.

IBM Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) is a processor dedicated to Linux workloads on IBM System z servers. It is supported by the z/VM virtualization software and the Linux operating system. By consolidating workloads, it reduces expenses in the areas of energy, floor space and software license fees.

Mainline Professional Services included configuration, installation, and implementation of the z10 BC, the zVM, Red Hat Linux and assistance with the Oracle set up. Mainline's technical team has been involved from the initial solution planning and continues as Parkview enters QA testing of the PeopleSoft solution.

The Result

"The estimate for a conventional data migration was 1,100 hours of downtime," Jones noted. "With SVC and virtualization, we were able to perform the migration during the day, making it transparent to the end user, with only 92 hours of down time, a huge savings in man hours. In fact," he elaborated, "given our five-year projections, we discovered that it was cheaper to buy this solution than continue with our previous system."

"Also, only two Oracle software licenses were required for the two IFLs rather than the eight for the previous system," Jones continued. "Our savings on licensing fees alone paid for the mainframe."

"Mainline came to us with valuable suggestions and ideas and helped Parkview get the IFLs installed and running," he concluded. "Our technology team liked working with them and they got the job done!"

For more information about this solution, call your Mainline account representative or call Mainline directly at 866.490.MAIN(6246) or complete our contact us form.