The need for speed (and precision): Enhancing medical imaging with AI and high-performance storage

Editor’s note: This is the second article powered by CHIME/DHI and sponsored by Pure Storage, looking at the future of high-performance data storage in healthcare, including medical imaging. The previous 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 healthcare industry is in constant pursuit of faster, more accurate diagnostics and treatments. Medical imaging, a cornerstone of modern medicine, is no exception. The demand for high-resolution images, rapid analysis, and seamless integration with artificial intelligence (AI) is driving a transformation in how healthcare organizations approach data storage.  

The healthcare industry’s initial embrace of cloud storage was driven by promises of scalability, cost reduction, and simplified IT management. However, the reality of cloud storage often falls short, leading to a trend of “cloud repatriation” as organizations grapple with unexpected costs, security concerns, and regulatory compliance challenges. This shift is particularly pronounced in medical imaging, where the unique demands of data volume, speed, and access necessitate a reevaluation of storage strategies. 

The unique demands of medical imaging data

Medical imaging data is characterized by its sheer volume, the need for rapid access, and the criticality of real-time analysis. Typically, physicians review not only the current examination but also years of relevant prior data. Meanwhile, the number of images, as well as their resolution and file sizes continue to grow substantially each year. Some industry estimates suggest huge annual growth in data coming out of Enterprise Imaging departments alone. With legal requirements around data retention, most healthcare providers are managing years’, even decades’ worth of digital imaging data, leaving them struggling to find cost predictability over their medical imaging storage. 

Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) is the backbone of modern radiology departments, facilitating the storage, retrieval, and display of medical images. However, storage limitations can hinder PACS and VNA (vendor neutral archive) workflows, leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment.  

St. Joseph’s Health experienced these challenges firsthand, with legacy storage systems causing “headaches for IT and frustration for clinicians.” Simple tasks like sending an email with a PDF attachment could impact system performance, leading to delays in patient admissions and access to lab results. 

Latency matters: The need for speed in healthcare imaging

Low latency, or the time it takes for data to travel between systems, is paramount in healthcare imaging. Radiologists require immediate access to high-resolution images for real-time analysis and diagnosis. Cloud storage, while offering scalability, often introduces latency due to the distance data must travel and the inherent limitations of internet connectivity. This latency can significantly impact patient care, especially in time-sensitive situations like stroke diagnosis or trauma assessment.  

Consider a scenario where a patient arrives at the emergency room with symptoms of a stroke. Every minute counts in such cases, as early intervention can significantly improve outcomes. However, if the hospital relies on cloud storage for its medical images, delays in accessing and analyzing those images could mean the difference between life and death. 

The ability to quickly access and analyze medical images can significantly impact patient outcomes. Adventist Health was able to accelerate radiology workflows to treat patients in emergencies, according to Josh Otten, the health system’s director of IT and solutions engineering. This helped ensure each patient was getting the right care at the right time, especially during critical periods. 

The advantages of high-performance on-premises Storage

High-performance on-premises storage addresses the latency challenges posed by cloud storage. By keeping data local, healthcare organizations can ensure faster data access, improved reliability, and enhanced security. Flash array technology, a cornerstone of modern on-premises storage, offers exceptional speed and performance, making it ideal for PACS workflows.  

Healthcare organizations are increasingly recognizing these advantages. For example, Jason Greene, Director of Infrastructure and Operations at Prime Healthcare, noted, “We’re starting to see a price convergence between flash and spinning-disk storage. Seeing that happen made us want to focus on flash storage to future-proof our enterprise.” 

Legacy flash storage vendors leverage solid-state drives (SSDs), but there are limitations to SSDs. Pure Storage manufactures and leverages Direct Flash Modules to deliver rapid data access and high throughput across the entire array, enabling radiologists to quickly retrieve and analyze images and uptime, reliability, and long-term data. This technology seamlessly integrates with leading PACS and VNA systems, streamlining workflows and enhancing efficiency. 

Monfort Hospital in Quebec reduced image-opening times for radiologists by storing short-term diagnostic files from its PACS on a flash-based, scale-out unified fast file and object (UFFO) storage platform. This also serves as a backup destination for critical file servers, ensuring data protection and availability. 

Performance has gone through the roof, according to Kevin Deschatelets, systems administrator for Monfort. “The technology is so easy to use. We migrated block workloads from our old array to a new one in less than a week. With our previous storage, this would have taken months.”   

Similarly, St. Joseph’s Health implemented high-performance flash array storage, resulting in immediate improvements in performance and reliability for clinical applications, email, analytics, and more. It has also reduced its data storage footprint and both power and cooling consumption.  

In a study conducted by Pure Storage and Dicom Systems, pairing high-performance flash storage with an interoperable enterprise imaging platform enabled the migration more than 800,000 imaging studies per day. Further, the combined technologies accelerated speeds for image routing to 137 million images per day, 5.7 million images per hour, 93,220 images per minute, and 1,587 images per second. 

AI and imaging: Accelerating diagnostics locally

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing medical imaging, with AI-powered algorithms capable of analyzing images with remarkable speed and accuracy. These algorithms can detect subtle anomalies, assist in diagnosis, and even predict patient outcomes. However, the effectiveness of AI in healthcare hinges on the availability of high-performance storage. On-premises storage provides the local processing power and low latency required for AI algorithms to operate efficiently, accelerating diagnostics and ultimately improving patient care.  

PAIGE.AI’s mission is to revolutionize cancer care. Its cancer detection model training involves feeding it vast amounts of tissue sample images, necessitating high-performance storage capable of handling petabytes of clinical data at speed and scale. Pairing such storage with powerful computing technology specialized for AI and machine learning tasks, PAIGE plans to more rapidly process and analyze massive volumes of medical data, leading to more efficient and effective cancer treatments. 

“We can help [patients] get the proper drugs at the right time—all based on machine learning and AI, built on Pure Storage and NVIDIA,” said PAIGE Founder and Chief Science Officer Thomas Fuchs.  

Best of both worlds: Storage-as-a-Service

Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) models offer a compelling solution for healthcare organizations seeking the benefits of both on-premise and cloud storage. STaaS provides the flexibility and scalability of the cloud while maintaining the performance and security of local storage. This hybrid approach allows organizations to leverage AI-powered analytics in the cloud while ensuring that critical imaging data remains readily accessible on-premises.  

The Pederzoli Group’s adoption of Pure Storage’s STaaS solution exemplifies this approach, enabling them to modernize their IT infrastructure while maintaining high performance and efficiency. The leader in accredited private healthcare faced challenges with their legacy storage systems as the increasing volume of medical imaging files, exceeding 120,000 files daily, overwhelmed their existing infrastructure, leading to operational slowdowns and increased patient wait times. The move to a STaaS solution significantly reduced read/write speeds and improved the efficiency of their data center. 

Choosing the Right Storage for Optimal Healthcare Outcomes

The choice of storage technology directly impacts the ability to achieve desired outcomes in medical imaging. High-performance on-premises storage, particularly flash arrays, is essential for meeting the demands of real-time image analysis, ensuring low latency, and facilitating the integration of AI-powered solutions. By prioritizing storage solutions that align with the unique requirements of medical imaging, healthcare organizations can unlock data flow, accelerate diagnostics, and ultimately deliver better patient care. 

Adventist Health sought a storage solution to alleviate IT resource constraints, enhance performance, and simplify management. However, they also needed heightened data security, particularly in the face of growing cyberthreats. For Advent, finding a storage partner aligned with their needs and priorities resulted in not only fast, reliable, and secure data backup capabilities, but also peace of mind in an increasingly vulnerable healthcare landscape. 

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.