Data centres: Vital components of critical healthcare systems

Source: Ben Selier, vice president of Secure Power, Anglophone Africa at Schneider Electric.

Many hospitals today rely heavily on electronic health records (EHR), and this information resides and is backed up in on-premises' datacentres or in the Cloud. Datacentres are therefore a major contributor to effective and modernised healthcare.

There are several considerations when designing datacentres for healthcare. For one, hospitals operate within stringent legislation when it comes to the protection of patient information.

The National Health Act (No. 61 of 2003), for example, stipulates that information must not be given to others unless the patient consents or the healthcare practitioner can justify the disclosure.

Datacentres form part of critical systems. To add an extra layer of complexity, in South Africa, datacentres should feature built-in continuous uptime and energy backup due to the country’s unstable power supply. Hospitals must therefore be designed to be autonomous from the grid, especially when they provide emergency and critical care.

Typically, datacentres are classified in tiers, with the Uptime Institute citing that a Tier-4 datacentre provides 99.995% availability, annual downtime of 0.4 hours, full redundancy, and power outage protection of 96 hours.

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In healthcare and when one considers human lives, downtime is simply not an option. And while certain healthcare systems and its resultant availability are comparable to a typical Tier-3 or Tier-4 scenario, critical systems in hospitals carry a higher design consideration and must run 24/7 with immediate availability.

In healthcare, the critical infrastructure of a hospital enjoys priority. What this means is the datacentre is there to protect the IT system which in turn ensures the smooth running of these critical systems and equipment. There is therefore a delicate balance between the critical systems and infrastructure, and the datacentre; one can’t exist without the other.

Design considerations

To realise the above, hospitals must feature a strong mix of alternative energy resources such as backup generators, uninterrupted power supply (UPS) and renewables such as rooftop solar.

Additionally, like most organisations, storage volume and type and Cloud systems will also vary from hospital to hospital. To this end, datacentre design for hospitals is anything but cookie cutter; teams need to work closely with the hospital while meeting industry standards for healthcare.

When designing healthcare facilities system infrastructure, the following should also be considered:

• Software like Building Management Systems (BMS) are not just about building efficiency but also offer benefits such as monitoring and adjusting indoor conditions like temperature control, humidity, and air quality.The BMS contributes to health and safety and critical operations in hospitals while also enabling patient comfort.
• Maintenance - both building and systems maintenance transcend operational necessity and become a matter of life or death.
• As mentioned, generators are essential when delivering continuous power which means enough fuel must be stored to run it. Here, hospitals must store fuel safely and in compliance with stringent regulations.
  In South Africa, proactively managing the refuelling timelines is also critical. The response times of refuelling these (fuel) bunkers can be severely hindered by issues such as traffic congestion as a result of outages and lights not working.

Selecting the right equipment for hospitals is therefore a delicate balance between technological advancement and safety. For instance, while lithium batteries offer many benefits, when used in hospitals, it is paramount that they also be stored in dry, cool and safe locations.Here, implementing an extinguishing system is a must to alleviate any potential damage from fire or explosions.

That said, lithium batteries are generally considered safe to use but it’s important to be cognisant of its potential safety hazards. Ultimately, hospitals carry the added weight of human lives which means the design of critical systems require meticulously planning and executed.