West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen is giving its doctors, nurses and clerical staff faster access to electronic and online resources through a new centralised and virtualised IM&T infrastructure, provided by Esteem Systems.

The new infrastructure will improve IM&T performance dramatically, reducing the time it takes users to login and access the patient administration and clinical systems. With secure, reliable and fast access to clinical information medical and clerical staff will be able to provide improved levels of service to the Trust’s patients.

West Wales General Hospital’s carbon footprint will also plummet as a result of a virtualised server environment based on VMware technology, which has been designed and implemented by Esteem and will reduce 40 servers down to just three. The virtualised VMware environment will also deliver vital cost savings to the Trust as a result of reduced power and cooling needs.

The new consolidated infrastructure will include real time operation and data replication, providing a resilient platform for data storage, virtualisation and disaster recovery plans.

To ensure the security and availability of vital clinical information, Esteem will design and implement a new storage area network (SAN) based on NetApp technology at its primary data centre at West Wales General Hospital with 4.8 terabytes of usable data. The SAN will be mirrored to their secondary data centre at Prince Phillip General Hospital in Llanelli and supported by an automated disaster recovery system utilising snapshot technology for instantaneous recovery time in the event of data loss.

“Our medical and clerical staff need to have a system that they can rely upon and access quickly,” explains Paul Solloway, IM&T Services Manager. “By working with a strategic partner such as Esteem, we’re able to give our staff the best tools to work with while also building the foundations for future IM&T projects.”

Solloway continues, “Our in-house IM&T department will also benefit from seamless, rapid deployment and upgrades of servers, which can be done with zero downtime. This will not only save us time and make upgrade management easier, but also means that there will be no disruptions to clerical and medical staff using our systems. With faster access and a higher level of service, users will notice a marked improvement to their working day, which in turn will lead to improved services to patients.”

Alastair Kitching, Commercial Director at Esteem comments, “We have an excellent relationship with the Trust and know we are providing a solid base for the organisation’s vital data storage and disaster recovery needs, as well as building a scalable platform for growth at little capital cost in the future.”

West Wales General Hospital and Prince Philip Hospital are part of the Hywel Dda NHS Trust created on the 1st April 2008 by the merger of Carmarthenshire NHS Trust, Ceredigion & Mid Wales NHS Trust and Pembrokeshire & Derwen NHS Trust.

For further information, please contact our Press Officer on 01937 861006 or e-mail on press@esteem.co.uk