The shift from paper to electronic health records (EHRs) has brought fundamental change to healthcare operations.

Boosted by the 2009 HITECH Act, EHR adoption by hospitals is now near-universal at 96%, according to a HHS report. Digital medical records have helped streamline workflows, reduce errors, and improve coordination of care. Thanks to technology, we've said goodbye to thick manila folders, unsecured paper, and cumbersome filing cabinets.

Of course, electronic data still has to be "stored." And unlike the medical record, the world of data storage had been the same for decades. While costs for spinning disk storage fell dramatically and capacity increased, much of the underlying technology had remained the same. Today with the advent of "flash" storage, racks of spinning disks are being replaced with faster and more energy efficient storage solutions, and most healthcare IT organizations are moving to flash storage to improve the performance of their EHR.  With most storage solutions, you have to "rip and replace" infrastructure every time you want to upgrade, usually every 3 to 4 years. That's time consuming -not to mention expensive.

Cisco is excited to announce that we've teamed up with partner Pure Storage to revolutionize the world of data storage. FlashStack combines Cisco UCS with industry-leading flash storage in one powerful package. This is especially good news for for customers of Epic, the leading EHR software vendor in the U.S., because FlashStack is Epic-compliant. It meets -or exceeds -Epic hardware specifications.

When customers build Epic on FlashStack, they get an instantly upgradable platform for Epic deployment. Additional capacity and capabilities can be added seamlessly in minutes, with no need for rip-and-replace upgrades. A simple, unified management interface gives the IT team the ability to manage UCS and Pure Storage resources using familiar Cisco management tools and processes.

FlashStack gives facilities the ability to scale on-demand, drive always-on high performance for Epic (even under heavy use), and deploy a cloud-like infrastructure for flexible growth. In fact, FlashStack is already making waves in the industry. One early adopter achieved a234% ROIon a VDI deployment with all-flash storage from Pure Storage. (Read the case study here).

So what does this mean for healthcare stakeholders?

Want to learn more? Visit Cisco (Booth 1850) and Pure Storage (Booth 6081) at the upcoming HIMSS17 conference in Orlando. Or visit our websites Pure Storage and Cisco, and read Pure Storage's blog.