Microsoft announced Epic clients, starting with Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, can utilize Microsoft Azure Large Instances to handle the scale required for Epic electronic health record (EHR) databases, enabling up to 50 million database accesses per second. Mount Sinai collaborated with Accenture to migrate its workloads to Azure, achieving the largest production instance of Epic on Azure globally, enhancing digital transformation and innovation in healthcare, according to an Aug. 10 news release.
"Our mission is to empower the healthcare industry to achieve more, helping to deliver the best experiences for providers and patients," Tom McGuinness, corporate vice president of global healthcare and life sciences at Microsoft, said in the release. "Through our collaboration with Epic, we are delivering innovation for customers on Azure that will help healthcare organizations reduce the complexity of infrastructure management and control costs with a secure, scalable and agile public cloud solution. These benefits are key to helping healthcare organizations succeed, particularly as they navigate through today’s economic landscape."
This innovation leverages dedicated resources, ushering in an era of scalability and capability previously unattainable within the confines of shared public cloud infrastructure solutions, the release reported.
In a seamless partnership with Accenture, Mount Sinai has embarked on a comprehensive migration of its operational workloads to Azure, achieving a monumental milestone by establishing the most extensive production instance of Epic hosted on Azure anywhere globally, according to the release.
"This advancement resonates with our mission of digital transformation, catalyzes the growth of artificial intelligence and innovation, facilitates scalability and adaptability, while simultaneously mitigating upfront infrastructure expenditures," Kristin Myers, executive vice president, chief digital and information officer and dean for digital and information technology at Mount Sinai, said in the release. "Ultimately, it ushers in an era of enhanced care delivery, breakthrough discoveries and more streamlined operational procedures."
Moreover, the bedrock of healthcare provider organizations and the foundation of care delivery is the EHR – an up-to-the-moment, patient-centric repository housing an individual's medical and treatment history, the release said. This comprehensive data provides healthcare practitioners with an expansive perspective on a patient's care journey.
As healthcare entities navigate through the evolving landscape of complex care requirements and challenging economic dynamics, a growing emphasis is placed on consolidating resources and transitioning away from on-premises data centers, all in pursuit of fostering innovation, according to the release.
Joseph Gimigliano, chief technology officer at Mount Sinai, emphasized the essence of collaborative partnerships in this transformative journey, saying effecting this digital revolution necessitates collaboration with partners who are attuned to our healthcare system's core objectives and the critical importance of patient well-being, the release reported.
