LIBERTYVILLE, IL, March 8, 2010 — Grand River Hospital and Medical Center is the main campus of Grand River Hospital District, a network of clinics and health providers that serve more than 27,000 people throughout Western Colorado. The 62,730 square foot campus houses emergency suites, operating rooms, a dietary clinic, medical labs, radiology department, and MRI stations. Originally built in 2001, the campus recently added a state-of-the-art data center to support its increasingly networked infrastructure. However, because the hospital is located in a rural area, assuring the delivery of constant uninterrupted power would be a critical challenge. To meet this need, Grand River turned to Chloride three-phase UPS technology.
During meetings with the general contractor, FCI Constructors, Grand River IT director Diana Murray expressed her preference for another brand of back-up power equipment.
“The contractor came back and said the other product was too expensive but asked that I review Chloride as an alternative,” explained Murray. “FCI guaranteed me that the Chloride system would meet my business objectives and network infrastructure.”
Murray knew there was a great deal at stake: In addition to protecting power to the new data center, the UPS would need to safeguard the network infrastructure, Health Information Systems, PACS, Bedside Monitoring System, Electronic Medical Records, Dictation System, Payroll System and Interface System.
“If Grand River didn’t have quality back-up power protection in place we could potentially lose data, or the data could become corrupt due to the servers powering off unexpectedly. It would be devastating to lose a patient’s Electronic Medical Record due to file corruption and it would be incredibly difficult to re-create it,” warned Murray.
After careful consideration and testing, Murray instructed FCI to deploy two 90-NET (180 kVA) three-phase UPS systems as critical back-up power to all servers housed in the data center. Each 90-NET was pre-configured with its own redundancy to account for the hospital’s rural location.
But Chloride’s partnership with Grand River didn’t end with the installation – it was just the beginning. The 90-NET’s advanced diagnostics and Chloride’s technical staff gives Grand River ongoing support 24/7/365, resulting in true peace-of-mind.
Murray explains: “Chloride’s LIFE.net system allows a trained engineer to access alerts from our UPS remotely and respond to our needs instantly. Also, I appreciate the confidence of having an engineer come on-site annually to evaluate the system’s performance, determine if it requires maintenance, or if a battery needs replacement. The engineer provides a comprehensive report that I can file with my HIPAA Security and Disaster Recovery documentation.”
Since installation in fall of 2008 Grand River has yet to experience a power-related problem, Murray reports: “We are
very fortunate to have purchased the Chloride system for our data center. In fact, we have already incorporated this back-up power protection into our expansion plans for the next 25 years.”
