Array as a Safeguard (AaaS): Fortifying Healthcare IT in the Digital Age

The healthcare industry’s digital transformation has been a mixed bag. While the cloud promised scalability and cost-efficiency, public cloud storage often falls short when faced with escalating costs, security concerns, data governance challenges, and the unique demands of medical imaging and AI-driven healthcare. The industry craves a storage solution that offers the flexibility and scalability of the cloud operating model while guaranteeing the performance, security, and reliability essential for safeguarding critical patient data and enabling cutting-edge medical advancements. This need has given rise to the concept of Array as a Safeguard (AaaS), a new approach to healthcare IT infrastructure that prioritizes data protection, security, and availability while embracing the agility and flexibility of the cloud.

The Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) Model: Embodiment of AaaS

StaaS is a subscription-based model where healthcare organizations subscribe to storage capacity and features instead of purchasing and managing hardware. This capacity can be delivered on-premises, through a hybrid model, or entirely in the public cloud, with the service provider managing the underlying infrastructure.

Modern STaaS clearly delineates responsibilities. Organizations control day-to-day operations, such as allocating volumes to hosts and servicing requests from application owners. The vendor, on the other hand, is responsible for ensuring the performance and availability of the storage infrastructure, as well as handling maintenance, updates, and capacity management.

Furthermore, the best STaaS providers go beyond these basic responsibilities and actively help ensure that the organization remains compliant with relevant data governance and regulatory requirements, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and data sovereignty laws. This collaborative approach allows healthcare organizations to leverage the expertise of the STaaS provider while maintaining control over their data and operations.

Key Advantages of STaaS:

• Scalability: STaaS allows for seamless scaling of storage capacity up or down based on the organization’s evolving needs, eliminating the need for costly hardware upgrades or overprovisioning.
• Simplified Management: With the provider handling maintenance, updates, and support, IT teams are freed up to focus on strategic initiatives.
• Predictable Costs: The subscription model offers predictable monthly or annual costs, simplifying budgeting and avoiding unexpected expenses.
• Financial Flexibility: STaaS shifts storage costs from a capital expenditure (CapEx) to an operating expenditure (OpEx) model, offering greater financial flexibility and reducing upfront investment.
• Operational Agility: By eliminating the need to manage hardware and software, STaaS enhances operational agility, allowing healthcare organizations to respond quickly to changing demands.
• Reduced Risk: With the provider responsible for data protection and disaster recovery, STaaS mitigates risks associated with data loss, cyberattacks, and other disruptions — foundational features of AaaS.

In line with the AaaS approach of prioritizing data availability, STaaS solutions incorporate redundancy and failover mechanisms, ensuring continuous access to critical healthcare data even in the event of hardware failures or disruptions. Recognizing the growing threat of ransomware attacks, STaaS solutions embrace the AaaS principle of proactive data protection by incorporating advanced ransomware detection and mitigation technologies.

Flash Arrays: Powering STaaS Performance and AaaS

Flash arrays are a critical STaaS component, leveraging faster and more reliable flash memory compared to traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). This makes them ideal for high-performance healthcare applications such as medical imaging, electronic health records (EHRs), and AI-powered analytics.

Flash arrays deliver AaaS benefits:

• Speed and Performance: Accelerate data access for faster diagnoses and treatment decisions.
• Reliability and Data Protection: Ensure data integrity and availability, crucial for healthcare continuity.
• Energy Efficiency: Contribute to cost savings and environmental sustainability.
• Seamless Integration and AI Acceleration: Flash array-based STaaS solutions seamlessly integrate with existing healthcare IT infrastructure, minimizing disruption. The performance and low latency of flash arrays are ideal for AI applications, allowing healthcare organizations to adopt and scale AI technologies without major infrastructure investments.

Real-World AaaS Impact

The Pederzoli Group, a leading provider of accredited private healthcare, exemplifies the real-world impact of AaaS using STaaS. By adopting a flash array-based STaaS solution, they fortified their IT infrastructure against cyberattacks, achieving faster image reconstruction and improved service delivery. This focus on data security and availability, core to AaaS, aligns with their commitment to patient-centric care.

“[STaaS] has enabled us to speed up the reconstruction of diagnostic images: this translates into more examinations in less time and allows us to deliver better services,” said Francesco Corba Colombo, IT Infrastructure Manager at Pederzoli Hospital. “In addition, we are assured of a timely response to any incident or cyberattack, proving to be even more convincing.”

Evaluating Modern STaaS Solutions

When choosing a STaaS solution, healthcare organizations should prioritize outcomes like scalability, cost-efficiency, and improved patient care. It’s also crucial to consider the provider’s ability to meet service-level agreements (SLAs), ensure data security and compliance, and support hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Look for providers that offer more than repackaged hardware. Modern STaaS should be adaptable, hybrid cloud-ready, and designed to serve the consumer’s needs, not just the vendor’s. It should consist of an enterprise-class subscription that provides foundational block, file, and object services to de-risk and accelerate strategic business change initiatives.

AaaS: The Key to Unlocking Healthcare Innovation

STaaS, powered by flash array technology, is the new era of healthcare IT. Embracing a modern STaaS solution that aligns with AaaS principles empowers healthcare providers to:

• Fortify IT infrastructure and protect critical data.
• Accelerate innovation and adopt cutting-edge technologies.
• Deliver exceptional patient care.
• Navigate the digital age with confidence and agility.
• Leverage data-driven insights for better outcomes.

Choosing the right STaaS partner, one that understands healthcare’s unique challenges and provides a true safeguard for data, is key to unlocking the full potential of AaaS and transforming healthcare delivery.

Editor’s note: This is the third article powered by CHIME/DHI and sponsored by Pure Storage that looks at the future of high-performance data storage in healthcare, including medical imaging. The first article considered the limitations of cloud storage and how organizations are revisiting on-premises storage to reduce cost and improve data control and security. The second article detailed how AI and high-performance on-premises storage can boost medical imaging.

About Pure Storage

Pure Storage redefines the healthcare data storage experience and simplifies how healthcare organizations protect, consume and interact with data. Pure powers EHRs, enterprise imaging, back-office systems, and more with secure storage that transforms data into value, providing quicker insights for better patient care.