WANdisco deal could open up US healthcare market
YORKSHIRE and Silicon Valley Big Data business WANdisco today announced a new partnership with the healthcare arm of the University of California which it said will help cut the number of deaths from medical errors.
The Sheffield-based quoted group said the deal potentially opens up new markets in the huge US healthcare sector.
It has agreed its first Big Data deployment through the Hortonworks channel partnership with the University of California’s Irvine Health (UCI Health) which is a university-based care provider in Orange County.
WANdisco will provide UCI Health with continuous availability of data through its unique non-stop technology, enabling UCI Health to be able digitally to collate, store and analyse all data relating to its patients’ conditions in real time, allowing staff to reduce considerably the number of lives lost annually.
UCI Health’s current data warehouse technology used to support their Electronic Medical Record applications struggles with availability issues as well as the variety of data it can handle. UCI Health’s key consideration in choosing WANdisco and Hortonworks was the continuous availability that WANdisco offers, eliminating downtime, which is unacceptable in medical situations where a patient’s condition can change dramatically and quickly.
Charles Boicey, informatics solutions architect at UCI Health, said: “WANdisco is helping us make a real shift in the medical profession. Rather than just helping people when they are sick, we are now able to identify what can be done to keep people well.
“The number of people who die from medical errors in the US alone is the equivalent of a major passenger plane dropping out of the sky every three days – being able to cut preventable deaths of this sort is of critical importance for the medical community. We’ve not found any other technology that could provide us with the uptime we need to offer this level of care – it’s like having a nurse and doctor in every hospital room around the clock.”
David Richards, WANdisco executive chairman and CEO, said: “We are delighted to help UCI Health implement its forward-thinking big data strategies, which we believe represent the future of the sector. This is just one demonstration of how Non-Stop Hadoop can change the world and a clear indication of why the continuous availability of data is critical.
“UCI Health is just one hospital in the UC medical system but their lead opens up a whole new opportunity for us across the healthcare sector. While initially our technology will be deployed on a relatively small scale, we look forward to working closely with UCI and developing our relationship over the coming months.”
