IBM overhauls IT at Pa. med center

TEYA VITU

tvitu@tucsoncitizen.com

Data storage systems developed in Tucson anchor a massive $402 million information technology overhaul at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center that could become a model for hospitals across the country.

IBM Storage Systems Division in Tucson, collaborating directly with Pitt, supplied three refrigerator-sized and two VCR-sized disk storage systems able to store all the medical records of UPMC’s 1.6 million patients, plus financial records, payroll data for 40,000 employees and other data. The patient records fill only one-quarter of the 120 terabyte capacity, said Joe Furmanski, technical project director at the medical center.

Equally important, the IBM TotalStorage DS 8300 and DS6800 systems, technology about a year old, is six times faster than Pittsburgh’s prior storage system and gives the 19-hospital system near instantaneous access to medical records,

“For doctors to use it, you have to have near instantaneous response time,” Furmanski said.

The Tucson units are tapped each time one of the 80,000 electronic prescriptions a month are written in Pennsylvania, he said.

Pittsburgh and IBM are in a unique technology development partnership that over eight years will rework UPMC’s entire IT operation, including mainframe servers and software, and personal computers.

The $2.5 million storage system component is the first piece put in place, IBM and the medical center announced today.

More storage units will be added in coming years as Pitt sees storage demands grow 50 percent a year, Furmanski said.

Furmanski has been to IBM Storage Systems in Tucson several times to work directly with MIke Hartung, the lead architect of the systems and one of IBM’s 61 Fellows around the world – the most prestigious designation for an IBM engineer.

“Mike Hartung has worked with us for several years,” Furmanski said. “He reviews our plans. (Tucson is) a part of the process. They provide us really good opinions.”

Pittsburgh provided design review for the DS6800 – the VCR-size unit – in its original development. The compact system could see use in the biggest business down to individual doctor, insurance or bank offices.

IBM and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will enter into a joint marketing agreement to sell the IT concept being fine-tuned in Pittsburgh to other hospitals across the country. Furmanski said no other hospital has such a comprehensive collaboration with a computer company.