A first in France: Nancy University Hospital enters the era of neutral image archiving with Bull and EMC.

A major functional leap forward, setting the Hospital firmly on the road to full-scale information lifecycle management (ILM)

Issy les Moulineaux, January  24, 2011 -

With its in-depth understanding of the hospital environment, technological expertise and knowledge of running large-scale integration projects Bull - along with its partner - was chosen to integrate the chosen functional solution EMC OSA (Open Systems Archive for HealthCare, based on Documentum), put in place the appropriate infrastructure and support the Hospital in its innovative approach.

The first 'neutral archiving' project in the French hospital sector

The project was born as a result of the need to improve the overall performance of medical image storage and data archiving, as the number of digital images being produced is exploding: last year, in France alone, over 61 million x-ray examinations generated more than 5 Petabytes of data.

Data archiving can extend to all kinds of applications and information that is already computerized or could be in the future (documents to be scanned, digitizing anapathology slides...). As a result, archiving becomes a universal, neutral resource that provides guaranteed access to data no matter what storage system is chosen or how it evolves. So whereas it typically takes between 24 and 48 hours to put together all the information for a particular patient, the new platform will give clinicians real-time access to all the relevant images, without needing any technical help.

Rapid implementation, with a long-term outlook

Bull created a highly structured project organization to ensure perfect collaboration between EMC, the publisher of OSA, and the business teams at the Hospital, known as Nancy CHU (the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy).

"Our project is a pioneering one, with tough requirements in terms of performance, simplicity and scalability," explains Pascale Bastien-Kere, Information Systems Director at CHU Nancy. "The combination of companies such as Bull and EMC has been a real source of strength for us. Under Bull's auspices, cutting edge expertise has been combined to define an innovative and scalable solution that meets our clinicians' needs. Such contributions are essential in meeting a challenge like this." The project is due to go live before the end of 2011.

All the Hospital's archives will be hosted on an independent platform, crossing all its activities, which will also be able to incorporate the archives of other establishments in a spirit of pooling resources.

The scalability of the components being used is already opening up new possibilities for future developments, such as archiving of information with probative value, archiving of non-radiological documents and the inclusion of new health sector partners, in a spirit of resource sharing and in line with the logic of the French single electronic patient record initiative, the DMP.

Press contact:
Image sept
Anne-Charlotte Créach - +33 (0) 1 53 70 94 21 - accreach@image7.fr

About Bull

Bull is a leader in secure mission-critical digital systems. The Group is dedicated to developing and implementing solutions where computing power and security serve to optimize its customers' information systems, to support their business.

Bull operates in high added-value markets including computer simulation, Cloud computing and 'computing power plants', outsourcing and security.

Currently Bull employs around 9,000 people across more than 50 countries, with over 700 staff totally focused on R&D. In 2011, Bull recorded revenues of €1.3 billion.

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