HP helps NHS Central Midlands Commissioning Support Unit ensure highest standards of healthcare

HP says that NHS Central Midlands Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) has improved the quality and safety levels of healthcare for more than 5.5million citizens across the West Midlands with an HP AppSystem for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) solution.
Hosted in a state-of-the-art data center, the NHS Central Midlands CSU’s new PDW tool provides health professionals with secure data access at unprecedented speeds. As a result, the CSU is able to supply high quality data to its national customer base and local stakeholders, including Dudley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), one of 211 groups across the UK authorised to commission healthcare services for their communities.
“Local healthcare commissioning needs to be driven in a standardised way so that data is easier to aggregate and quality is improved,” says Dr David Hegarty, Chair of Dudley CCG. “HP's high-density servers and storage subsystems enable us to make cost-effective, evidence-based commissioning decisions which will help safeguard the health data of the borough of Dudley’s 305,000 citizens.”

A fully integrated and tested HP AppSystem for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 PDW solution now enables data to be processed faster, more efficiently and with greater frequency. The solution integrates six data sets from various sources and provides built-in support for analytics functions, allowing queries run against trillions of rows of data to be returned in seconds.

“The HP solution delivers significant advantages over standard SQL databases,” says Mark Marshall, Enterprise Architect, NHS Central Midlands CSU. “As well as processing data more effectively, it provides the extensive storage required to store multiple datasets, and ensures that all the data is held within a secure environment.”

Multiple HP MSA P2000 G3 Storage systems deliver consolidated storage for fast, cost-effective information access, and can be easily scaled to handle up to 610TB without impacting performance. Linked by high-speed low-latency interconnects, multiple HP ProLiant DL300 G7 rack-optimised servers work in parallel as a single entity, reducing architectural complexity and risk.

24x7x365 business continuity is enabled by proactive and reactive support from HP Technology Services, which will minimise maintenance work and reduce costs.

“Innovative healthcare providers need to take advantage of the latest technologies to boost efficiency and optimise costs,” says Marc Waters, director, Enterprise Servers Storage and Networking, HP UK&I. “By consolidating and standardising data warehousing for NHS Central Midlands CSU, HP helps ensure that its healthcare services meet the changing needs of its citizens.”