Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust has shared the launch of a new digital data centre at its Dewsbury and District Hospital site, designed to “support the 24/7 operation of a vast range of digital systems” underpinning clinical and non-clinical activities.
The trust states that the new centre will house around 300 servers, together with storing and managing data, to provide “crucial improvements” to its IT infrastructure and performance, with hopes that the “increased system resilience will allow for a more safe and secure service” with more robust cyber security, fewer unplanned outages and a “substantial reduction” in system downtime. Additionally, the trust highlights hopes for increased capacity to enable “the implementation of ever-advancing technologies” and the opportunity to further develop existing services.
Purpose-built for 300 servers, the DDC has been built thanks to a collaborative effort from teams across Mid Yorkshire, including operations and project teams within digital services, and members of the estates team. The project has also drawn on external partnerships with suppliers such as Dell and BCS.
The new facility replaces the former data centre, which the trust describes as outdated and “no longer fit for purpose”, with no potential for expansion as it was housed within an existing hospital building and reported outages in the summer months.
Mat Ramskill, head of digital platforms, said: “Digital transformation in healthcare is a key focus for the NHS and for us at Mid Yorkshire. The new digital data centre will support the delivery of this across the trust by enabling us to take full advantage of all appropriate technological opportunities. The data centre is essential to ensuring key services and applications are available and efficient 24 hours a day.”
Also on digital and data, our new feature series has explored progress and developments in digital for health across the South East region, covering news, strategies, and other recent developments across Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire; Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire; Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; Devon; Dorset; Gloucestershire; and Somerset.
For a recent webinar, we were joined by Andy Sheret, head of business development at ITHealth, and Chad Holmes, security evangelist at Cynerio, who shared insights around securing patient data for safer care, highlighting the impact and risks of data breaches on hospitals, and the steps that need to be taken to proactively identify and secure healthcare systems.
