Gunma University Hospital in Japan Opts for Pure Storage AFA

Pure Storage, Inc. announced that its modern data solutions have helped Gunma University Hospital further improve the performance and security of its technology infrastructure, in particular its electronic medical systems.

The hospital shared their experience at Pure’s annual user event, Pure//Accelerate Japan.

It employs over 1,700 staff serving 2,000 outpatients daily and 13,000 inpatients yearly, and has been recognized by the Japanese Ministry of Health for its innovative use of technology to improve medical care. In 2015, they moved to an all-flash storage environment from another technology vendor. However, in an industry where seconds can help save lives, even better performance was required.

In the recent technology refresh, the hospital’s IT team opted for Pure’s all-flash storage solutions which enabled them to improve response times of its electronic medical records system. For example, calling “Overview“, a frequently used feature, used to take 20 to 21s. but with Pure, it takes 1 to 2s. Data compression also improved by 500%, enabling the hospital to realize cost savings through lower hardware requirements. Pure’s SafeMode technology also improved the security and integrity of the hospital’s data while Pure’s Evergreen//Forever will see them enjoy lower maintenance costs and non-disruptive upgrades over the next 7 years.

“When a doctor treats a patient, he retrieves their electronic medical record which contains critical information of the patient’s clinical course. With HDD storage, this could take 30 to 40s. When we first introduced all-flash in 2015, we reduced this to 5 to 6 s. but even this was too slow for our doctors. With Pure, we are seeing response times of under 2s. In addition, the data compression from Pure was so effective that we improved our data reduction by 5x, which means we require less hardware,” said Kota Torikai Ph.D. (engineering) medical physicist, associate professor, system integration center, Gunma University Hospital.

The performance gains were made possible by Pure’s DirectMemory Cache technology on the FlashArray//X, which provides near-DRAM speeds at significant cost savings compared to an all-DRAM implementation.

“When introducing an electronic medical record, it is necessary to adhere to the 3 principles of electronic storage: authenticity, readability, and storage; as well as the 3 principles of cyber security: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Pure’s SafeMode gives us the full confidence of restoring electronic medical records safely and securely in the unlikely event of a ransomware incident. This helps our efforts to continually improve medical safety,” added Torikai.

“There are very strict requirements in a healthcare environment. Any inefficiency or sec. lost can result in the loss of a patient’s life. Gunma University Hospital has been a pioneer in Japan in the use of technology to improve healthcare and Pure is proud to be able to stand by their side with our technology and service innovations to help them to take healthcare standards even further,” said Yoshiyuki Tanaka, president, Pure Storage Japan.