US hospital aims to reduce deaths with WANdisco deal

The Sheffield-based firm said the deal will enable the University of California’s Irvine Health (UCI Health) hospital to digitally collate, store and analyse all patient data in real time.

UCI Health informatics solutions architect Charles Boicey said WANdisco is helping the hospital to make a real shift in the medical sector.

“Rather than just helping people when they are sick, we are now able to identify what can be done to keep people well,” he said.

“The number of people who die from medical errors in the US alone is the equivalent of a major passenger plane dropping out of the sky every three days – being able to cut preventable deaths of this sort is of critical importance for the medical community.

“We’ve not found any other technology that could provide us with the uptime we need to offer this level of care – it’s like having a nurse and doctor in every hospital room around the clock.”

WANdisco chairman and CEO David Richards said UCI Health’s forward-thinking big data strategies represent the future of the sector.

“This is just one demonstration of how Non-Stop Hadoop can change the world and a clear indication of why the continuous availability of data is critical.

“UCI Health is just one hospital in the UC medical system, but their lead opens up a whole new opportunity for us across the healthcare sector.”

Mr Richards added: “While initially our technology will be deployed on a relatively small scale, we look forward to working closely with UCI and developing our relationship over the coming months.”

Analyst George O’Connor at Panmure Gordon retained his buy recommendation ahead of the group’s final results.

“Not only is it the first announced deal through the channel (Hortonworks) but also consider the nature of the implementation and its capacity to scale to other hospitals.

“Also this is, we understand, a competitive knock-out against Oracle and Teradata – so a body blow for the old guard.

“For us the deal illustrates our view that 2014 is the Year of the Proof of Concept – the wider applicability of the technology.”

In January WANdisco reported a record performance in its fourth quarter with subscription bookings of £2.6m, representing growth of 71 per cent year on year.

The company said this brought bookings for the full year to a total of £9m, representing year-on-year growth of 87 per cent.

The firm said it delivered strong growth and sales traction in the fourth quarter. Mr Richards said progress was being driven by new, first-time customers, such as Goldman Sachs, and returning customers, such as NCR and Juniper Networks.