BridgeHead Software Data Management Healthcheck 2010 Reveals Only a Quarter of Hospitals Surveyed Had a Specific CO2 Reduction Target
Health Informatics Congress 2010, Birmingham, UK – 27th April 2010 – Research results from a global survey by BridgeHead Software, the Healthcare Storage Virtualization (HSV) company, suggest the healthcare industry’s movement towards “green IT” may be more of an aspiration than a reality.
Results from the Data Management Healthcheck 2010 – a global survey into the healthcare industry’s ongoing strategies for managing their IT systems – found that only 25 per cent of healthcare organisations had a specific CO2 target to reduce their carbon emissions. 29 per cent of respondents were unaware of a CO2 target, if it did exist.
The survey also asked respondents (healthcare IT professionals from all over the world, but primarily from the United States and United Kingdom) what they were doing to reduce their organisations’ IT carbon footprints specifically. Only 16 per cent of respondents said they monitored energy consumption across their IT infrastructures on an ongoing basis against pre-set targets. Less than three per cent claimed to use a carbon-offset scheme.
“Prior to the recession, ’green IT’ was definitely en vogue. Yet the survey results suggest a shift in priorities, namely that green IT is not a primary focus for healthcare IT professionals at the moment,” said John McCann, Director of Marketing at BridgeHead Software. “Although reducing the carbon footprint from their IT infrastructures may not be not a specific objective, any green benefits certainly seem a welcome by-product of other cost-saving activities, such as, for example, Healthcare Storage Virtualization [HSV].”
McCann added, “Although HSV is best known for its technological benefits (simplifying data migration, enhancing content access, maximising storage resource utilisation, etcetera), it also offers some green merit as a secondary benefit by helping to alleviate the burden of healthcare data being kept ‘powered-on’ on the primary store. In our survey, nearly 40 per cent of respondents said they were employing server and/or storage virtualization to minimise the number of physical servers in use and maximise the efficiency of their existing storage assets which, in turn, delays the need for hardware upgrades. This mindset is certainly a step in the right direction and many healthcare organisations are starting to adopt this approach. Our experience at BridgeHead Software suggests the majority of healthcare data is rarely accessed and, therefore, many healthcare organisations are spending a lot of time, effort and money attempting to keep unnecessary data online which requires not only the storage hardware itself (and associated infrastructure, e.g. air conditioning units), but also vast power consumption. Longer term, we hope to see a more pragmatic approach to managing data that will contribute to a reduced carbon footprint.”
Despite the survey results, carbon reduction is considered to be a hot-button issue for healthcare institutions all over the world. In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service’s (NHS’s) Carbon Reduction Strategy for England (CRS) mandates that the NHS must reduce its existing carbon footprint by 80 per cent by 2050 to meet government CO2 targets. To stay on-track for this target, the NHS must reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent by 2015 (based on a 2007 baseline).
The Data Management Healthcheck 2010, concluded in early April, gauged the industry’s readiness for (and responses to) the explosive growth of information technologies and data they produce. Survey results on the healthcare industry’s approaches to the exponentially increasing volumes of clinical data will be announced in coming weeks.
ENDS
Press briefings
Journalists, bloggers and analysts attending Health Informatics Congress 2010 are invited to register for a press briefing to discuss the research, Healthcare Storage Virtualization and BridgeHead Software’s European expansion plans with CEO Tony Cotterill, Director of Marketing John McCann or other available BridgeHead Software spokespeople.
If you would like more information or to schedule a briefing, please do not hesitate to contact Rose Ross at rose@omarketing.co.uk or on +44 (0)208 255 5225.
Data Management Healthcheck 2010
To request additional information or sign up to receive an executive summary of the research when it is available, please contact Rose Ross at rose@omarketing.co.uk
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Media Contacts
UK and EMEA
Rose Ross
Omarketing
+44 208 255 5225
+44 7976 154597
rose@omarketing.co.uk
www.twitter.com/Rose_at_O
www.twitter.com/Omarketingnews
US
Elizabeth S. Glaser
Dodge Communications
770-576-2551
eglaser@dodgecomunications.com
About BridgeHead Software
BridgeHead Software, the Healthcare Storage Virtualization (HSV) company, offers a scalable, future-proof platform to overcome rising data volumes and increasing storage costs while delivering peace of mind around the access, availability and protection of critical electronic patient data.
Trusted by more than 1,000 hospitals worldwide, BridgeHead Software solves healthcare organisations’ backup, recovery and archiving challenges. BridgeHead’s HSV solutions are designed to operate with any hospital’s chosen software applications and storage hardware, regardless of vendor. This presents healthcare organisations with more choice, flexibility and control over the way data is accessed, protected and managed. The net effect – better utilisation of hardware resources and, more importantly, the efficient distribution, availability and use of vital healthcare data.
To learn more about BridgeHead Software, visit http://www.bridgeheadsoftware.com
Or follow BridgeHead Software on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/BridgeHeadHDM or http://www.twitter.com/BridgeHeadHSV
About Healthcare Storage Virtualization (HSV)
Healthcare Storage Virtualization is a technology platform that decouples software applications from the physical storage hardware on which the application data resides. By separating these applications from the storage device/s, healthcare organisations have a lot more choice, flexibility and control over the way data is accessed, protected and managed. The net effect – better utilisation of hardware resources and, more importantly, the efficient access and use of critical electronic patient data.
HSV allows healthcare organisations to take ownership of their data even though it may reside on disparate software and hardware systems. Being vendor-agnostic, BridgeHead HSV has the ability to interface with any storage platform intelligently, creating better and broader availability of content as well as prohibiting unwanted access and providing comprehensive disaster recovery capability.
In addition, BridgeHead HSV technology offers powerful connectivity to all storage media types. As part of its advanced data protection and archiving features, HSV allows files to be transformed (e.g. compressed and de-duplicated) invisibly in the background, irrespective of media type and functionality, vastly reducing the capacity required across the storage real estate and often delaying the need for hardware upgrades.
Finally, BridgeHead’s focus on healthcare lies at the heart of HSV. Consequently, all of the common native standards found within healthcare IT are supported e.g. HL7, DICOM XDS style interfaces etc. This support allows speedy integration of the HSV solution resulting in a more rapid return on investment.
