Microsoft collaborates with Epic to advance healthcare cloud solutions

Patients and providers are demanding healthcare systems offer flexible access to medical information as well as robust security. As patients take a more active role in managing their health, they expect safe, secure and efficient web-based access to their health information and the ability to schedule physician appointments or have email physician consultations.  

But for this to happen, networks must have strong controls in place to protect patient privacy while allowing flexibility for providers to fulfill their responsibilities with existing resources. For example, a clinician should be able to record patient notes on a mobile device and later access the notes from his or her desk. The same information should then also be available with restricted access to other clinicians with the patient’s personal details safeguarded.

Microsoft is working with Epic to help providers offer these types of services. 

Through this collaboration, Microsoft offers HYPER-V for running Epic’s Hyperspace application and Microsoft Azure cloud storage to archive infrequently accessed data to less expensive storage. The Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 platform is targeted for Citrix XenApp 6.5 Virtual Machines running Hyperspace on Microsoft Server 2008 R2 for Epic 2012, Epic 2014 and the upcoming Epic 2015 application.

Epic’s sizing and capacity recommendations for Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 give customers more options in their choice of virtualization platforms and also are a targeted hypervisor for Epic’s Target Platform for Web and Service Servers.

Children’s Hospital of Colorado, Legacy Health and Group Health Cooperative have run Epic Hyperspace successfully on Hyper-V/System Center platform for the last few years. Their familiarity and trust in the Microsoft Cloud Platform made it an easy choice.

Having rolled out the solution to more than 2700 users, Rick McIntosh, Manager of Systems Infrastructure, Children's Hospital of Colorado, noted, "With the ease of use and familiarity of the Microsoft stack, we saved $200K in software licensing and achieved much lower administration costs." 

Group Health Cooperative has also simplified its IT management and improved service to their users. According to John Sims,Supervisor of Desktop Engineering, Group Health Cooperative, “Microsoft virtualization solutions help us operate more efficiently and cost-effectively and provide the resources that our clinicians and staff need in a fraction of the time previously required." 

Microsoft’s Hyper-V reduces the costs of operating and maintaining physical servers and the time needed to set up hardware while improving server availability. As part of the Windows Server family, Hyper-V includes access to Windows 8.

Microsoft’s work with Epic underscores their commitment to creating impactful technology that helps break down the barriers to more efficient provider solutions that enhance the patient-provider experience.

For additional information, please contact us. To learn more about Microsoft’s role in providing healthcare technology, follow us on Twitter (@Health_IT) and stay tuned to the Microsoft in Health blog for the latest updates.