With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and Office of the National Coordinator recently releasing the proposed requirements for Stage 2 meaningful use and 2014 certification of electronic health records, hospital executives are looking for viable data storage options to meet their needs. As Stage 2 requirements give way for more sources of data, data centers are especially useful in such health information (IT) technology endeavors.
Stage 2 Requirements and What to Expect:
While a long list of items were proposed, they all centered on a progressive push for doctors and hospitals to improve quality and efficiency through IT usage. Though not too far a cry from electronic health record certification standards proposed last year, noted National Coordinator for Health IT, Farzad Mostashari, Stage 2 meaningful se rules pivot around the need for greater health information exchange. This means that health organizations need to develop methods to exchange data across organizational boundaries.
A requirement that caught my eye was 10% of patients must be able to “view, download, or transmit to the third party their health information.” This requires massive data storage needs along with the ability for a streamlined flow of communication for electronic health records between patients and physicians. This is a positive step in the right direction as other industries have seen great results from mining large sets of data. With big data management brings forth the potential for great improvements: from more efficient population health management to more personal patient experiences and of course, finding ways to reduce costs.
With these great data requirements, it’s no surprise that data centers are a growing facility project hospitals are implementing. According to the HFM/ASHE 2012 Construction Survey 1% of hospital executives plan on constructing data centers in the next year and 11% plan on developing them in the next 3 years. With wired cable systems for building automation services a top priority as well as wireless services for patient safety features and patient charting, data centers serve a viable need for health systems looking to upgrade their data infrastructure.
One health system that recently held a ground breaking ceremony for its new data center was Roper St. Francis Healthcare (RSFH) in North Charleston, South Carolina. Health system executives are building a 16,000 square foot facility to serve as a safe haven for around 40 tons of electronic communications equipment responsible for housing and distributing data to 100 RSFH facilities in a nine-county area. Once operational, the data center will expand the health system’s ability for future technological growth, a chief concern for health system and hospital executives across the country.
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