As part of its private cloud strategy, Hitachi Vantara said Monday that it can reduce multi-vendor friction with a new private and hybrid cloud environment designed to upgrade hospitals’ IT backbones and better handle their data needs. 

Meanwhile, the largest rural healthcare system in the United States also announced that it is pursuing cloud modernization across its medical centers, clinics, senior living centers and other advanced care resources via a new partnership with Infor. 

And process automation company Qventus said it added real-time insights into perioperative and inpatient care platforms that could increase operating room access by three to six cases per OR per month and also automate clinicians' bedside tasks after surgery.

VMware launches private, hybrid cloud

Hitachi pledged to lower organizations' costs and energy consumption through a collaboration with Broadcom, which purchased VMware in November, the company said in an announcement.

In combining automation and software-defined services with enterprise infrastructure, the new private, hybrid cloud could help organizations modernize for improved data performance and scale. 

The platform deploys business and mission-critical workloads with highly available blended server-based virtualized storage – VMware vSAN – and external storage, according to Hitachi. It removes multi-vendor friction by providing a single source of truth for systems, solutions and services.

"This not only addresses the current challenges of data management and infrastructure modernization, but also aligns with organizations' sustainability goals, making it an essential tool for businesses looking to thrive in the era of generative [artificial intelligence] and beyond," Paul Turner, vice president of products in the Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation Division, said in a statement.

Sanford Health partners with Infor

With unified processes, Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanford Health will be able to break down silos and integrate core enterprise functions, according to an announcement Monday from Infor, a business cloud software vendor, about the new partnership.

Streamlining workflows across departments and gaining real-time insights could free up Sanford Health's caregivers, the company said.

"We look forward to supporting Sanford Health in achieving greater operational efficiency and delivering exceptional healthcare services to the communities they serve," Steve Fanning, senior vice president of Infor, said in a statement.

Last week, Infor also announced that it selected Amazon Bedrock for building and scaling embedded generative AI applications.

Qventus adds AI to ops platforms 

AI-powered digital assistants can help clinicians reduce the amount of time they spend on administrative tasks, which wastes an estimated $13 billion annually, according to Qventus.

To bridge the data-to-action gap, the company has added capabilities for analyzing complex data in real time – predicting patient needs and recommending specific actions – initially developed with providers including Ardent Health, Allina Health, HonorHealth, Northwestern Medicine and others.

With AI operational assistance, healthcare teams can practice "at the top of their license," the company's CEO and co-founder, Mudit Garg, said in a statement.

Frontline staff using the AI copilot in its inpatient platform to enhance bedside tasks could improve patient outcomes while the use of an AI assistant in the company's perioperative care platform can automate procedural components of surgical and post-surgical coordination. 

The added insights could help hospitals prevent surgery cancellations, reduce manual burden on care teams and enhance productivity.

"Fragmented surgical coordination is a critical clinical challenge for our health systems partners," Dr. David Atashroo, Qventus, chief medical officer, noted in the statement.

It has "drastically" reduced administrative burdens at HonorHealth, Kim Post, executive vice president and chief operations officer, added.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.

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