Dell's cloud-based UCA solution, supported by the new data centre located in Slough, will be available in UK later this year. Cloud based archiving is an ideal alternative for hospitals that prefer not to build and maintain their own archive. By consolidating and moving archiving to the cloud with flexible per-study pricing, hospitals reduce data storage and retention costs and free up resources for critical healthcare objectives. Immediate, on-demand access to archived studies for comparisons means quick turn-around time on reads. Dell data migration services also simplify the transition to the private cloud for healthcare organisations while Dell's recovery/backup solution ensures that information is managed safely and securely.

Today, the average 100-bed hospital performs 40,000 to 45,000 radiology exams annually requiring up to 5 terabytes (TB) of image storage capacity a year(1). Medical image data storage demand in Europe is expected to grow 70-80 percent annually through 2017 (2) driven by the expansion of PACS to other specialties beyond radiology and growth in the use of scans and higher resolution imaging technology including 3D imaging. For example, one 256-slice scan can generate up to 7,000 images that must be retained for up to 25 years(3), depending on the age of the patient.

While there is more digital image information than ever before, physicians and hospitals who share patients have no real way to share image information to coordinate patient care because so much of this information resides in disparate PACS.

For hospitals balancing tremendous budget pressures and productivity challenges, managing and sharing imaging data as efficiently as possible is a top priority. Dell's On-Premise and cloud-based UCA solutions address both the cost and access challenges of image data with a vendor-neutral archive, object-based storage and services that provide seamless integration between the leading PACS systems. Dell's solution also sorts and stores images that must be readily available to clinicians from those more suitable for long-term retention.

Dell's On-Premise UCA solution will be available in early spring in the UK and this summer in France and Germany. Several European hospitals have already been using Dell's On-Premise Clinical Archive.

The volume of archive data which needs to be stored, secured and managed in healthcare is growing at an unprecedented rate. Existing approaches are reaching the limit of economic and operational scalability and new solutions are urgently required. In response, Dell has developed the UCA solution, an integrated object-based storage platform which removes application data-silos so that all data can be archived in one neutral, secure, efficient, intelligent and scalable platform.

To assess the beneficial impact of UCA in use in hospitals, a pan-European pilot programme was undertaken by Dell in association with Intel and BridgeHead Software. The programme was independently assessed by Ignetica, and was complemented by further research into the current situation and perspectives of Healthcare IT Leaders across Europe. The analysis is now complete, and the conclusions highlight that:

• Current approaches aren't sustainable in light of massive growth in data volume
• Storage and archiving is of strategic importance in an e-Health environment
• Dell's UCA solution delivers clear operational, economic and strategic benefits enabling a step change in archiving effectiveness

The Dell Cloud Clinical Archive is now managing more than 68 million clinical studies archived in the U.S.; nearly 4.8 billion diagnostic imaging objects and supports more than 800 clinical sites in one of the world's largest cloud-based clinical archives. Growing at a rate of more than a million new studies under management each month, the archive will soon surpass the 5 billion mark, making Dell one of the largest healthcare cloud computing service providers in the industry.

Dell recently achieved ISO-13485 certification for its cloud-based image archive operations. Achievement of this globally recognised quality standard demonstrates a commitment by Dell to provide healthcare solutions and services that consistently meet the most stringent industry requirements.

Dell's UCA solution will be demonstrated in Booth # 550 (Expo E) at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR), March 1-5 in Vienna, Austria.

"With Unified Clinical Archiving, Dell is helping healthcare organisations manage image information efficiently and effectively with a continuum of implementation options that extend from on-premise, to the cloud and hybrid models to address every budget and technology need," said Aongus Hegarty, President EMEA, Dell. "Dell's storage solutions extend from primary on-site storage to virtualized storage and archiving with services that let hospitals focus on using data to improve patient care, not on managing storage."

"City Hospitals Sunderland is focused on ensuring patient safety and quality of care. Critical information we have on our patients needs to be stored, protected, correlated, shared and made accessible for our clinicians. Storing this amount of information is demanding as the volume of patient images generated grows daily. We worked with Dell in deploying the UCA solution as a pilot focused primarily on archiving in our Ophthalmic Imaging System. The UCA solution has enabled clinical applications to allow our staff to spend more time with patients and on patient care rather than dealing with hard-copy images." said Andy Hart, Director of IT & IG at City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust.

Related news articles:

• Dell Healthcare and Life Sciences' Profile

About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. As the leading provider of healthcare IT services in the world, Dell helps healthcare organisations harness the power of information to simplify administration; coordinate and manage patient care; transition from episodic care to prevention and wellness management and ultimately to deliver personalised medicine.

1. Frost and Sullivan
2. Imaging Data Storage in EMEA 2010-2017, Frost and Sullivan
3. NHS Code of Practice for Records Management