Hong Kong's Quality HealthCare Adopts IBM Cloud and Analytics

HONG KONG, Dec. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is building a virtualized infrastructure for one of the leading healthcare providers in Hong Kong, Quality HealthCare Medical Services (QHMS).

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The project involves the consolidation of more than 100 servers into a cloud environment that hosts QHMS' mission critical systems that serve over 600 medical centers in Hong Kong and Macau. The optimized infrastructure will enable QHMS to reduce IT maintenance and disaster recovery costs, ensure production system maintainability and performance, and achieve energy-savings.

By reducing the number of physical servers from over 100 to eight IBM System x servers and centralizing storage, QHMS can reduce IT operational costs by 25 percent and software license and related maintenance costs by 23 percent. The new and highly redundant server infrastructure also includes an automated centralized back-up system of IBM System Storage DS3500 Express that enables fast, secure and cost-effective storage management, back up and recovery.

"We are always looking for ways to further improve the patient experience. Our new cloud allows us to deliver information to our doctors faster and in a more reliable way," said Elaine Chu, Chief Operating Officer of QHMS. "As a result, we will be able to serve our patients more effectively and with higher levels of care. It is very exciting to see how we can make a difference to our patients with the help of technology."

Additionally, the deployment of the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence solution provides financial key performance indicator (KPI) and analysis, creating the opportunity to gain more timely business information for better business performance management and smarter decision-making. 

QHMS aims to monitor business performance in over 600 medical centers. With IBM Cognos BI, QHMS can build a standardized and centralized information delivery platform that is scalable and flexible, and that enables QHMS to monitor the performance of a wide range of services running on different systems. QHMS' management team can now easily access timely business information with just a few mouse clicks, speeding response times to business needs and patient demands. As a result, QHMS can now focus on analyzing outcomes to drive smarter business decisions instead of spending time compiling manual reports.

"We are pleased to help Quality HealthCare build a smarter computing infrastructure to support its growth strategy," said Savio Ng, Executive, Systems and Technology Group at IBM China/Hong Kong Limited. "By providing a scalable server and storage infrastructure, we believe we can help Quality HealthCare drive greater efficiencies and address its business growth in a dynamic market."

The server consolidation project was delivered through Microware, which provided system analysis and infrastructure design consultation services, including consolidation assessment, network, storage and backup design for the project.  The system migration is expected to be completed by the end of 2011.

"IBM and Microware made our cloud implementation much easier than it should have been. From the moment we approached them, they worked closely with us to make our vision for a cloud into a reality," said Gerhard Zielinski, Chief Information Officer of QHMS.

About Quality HealthCare
Quality HealthCare Medical Services Limited is a physician led provider group offering an integrated range of healthcare services including facilities management, third party plan administration and paramedical support. The Group provides care for our private and corporate contract patients through a network of more than 580 Western and Chinese medical centres, and 47 dental and physiotherapy centres. In 2010, our network recorded more than 2.8 million healthcare visits. We also operate Hong Kong's longest-established nursing agency and one of our medical practices has been serving Hong Kong people for over 140 years.

In 2010, Quality HealthCare became a member of Fortis Global Healthcare, pan-Asian's largest healthcare group, with footprints covering over 12 countries in the region. Fortis Global Healthcare is committed to providing premier patient-centric healthcare across Asia and Australia, spanning the healthcare spectrum, from hospitals to diagnostics, primary care, and other healthcare segments.

For more information about Quality HealthCare, please go to: www.qhms.com

About IBM Cloud Computing

IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud.  Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ibmcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com.

Media enquiries:
Sammie Lee
IBM Hong Kong
Tel:  (852) 2825 0031
Email:  [email protected]

Steve Tomasco
IBM Media Relations
917-687-4588
[email protected]

Julie Chow
Quality HealthCare Medical Services Limited
Tel:  (852) 2975 2388
Email:  [email protected]

SOURCE IBM