Fujitsu has announced its support of the AWS for Health initiative from Amazon Web Services (AWS) by bringing Epic in the Cloud to NHS trusts and UK healthcare providers.
The development means healthcare organisations looking to deploy Epic have the option, for the first time, to run the electronic patient record (EPR) in the cloud. By working with Fujitsu and its ecosystem of strategic suppliers, trusts can expect to reduce the cost, minimise the technical risk and minimise clinical and other resources required to deploy, maintain and deliver maximum benefit from their EPR investment.
Jamie Whysall, head of UK healthcare, Fujitsu, said: ‘We are pleased to support the AWS for Health initiative and to be part of a movement designed to make it easier for health and care organisations to find the right digital partners and the tools they need to address the challenges and opportunities facing them.’
AWS for Health is an initiative featuring services and solutions from AWS and AWS partners that is built specifically for healthcare, biopharma and genomics customers. The initiative makes it easier for health professionals to select the right tools, partners and industry specialists to address their highest-priority workloads across the healthcare community.
Fujitsu’s Epic in the Cloud is designed to help address challenges that NHS trusts and UK healthcare organisations can face in making the business case for Epic and then deploying and consuming upgrades for the EPR.
‘This has given us the ideal opportunity to announce our Epic in the Cloud offer for the NHS and UK healthcare providers. Fujitsu has worked in collaboration with the AWS global health team to bring to life the Epic on AWS blueprint, making it possible to host Epic on AWS, located in London to support data sovereignty requirements,’ Whysall continued. ‘We have also worked with our strategic suppliers to lower the cost of entry for deploying Epic, delivering the potential for savings of up to 40% on the total cost of ownership, and enabling customers to make sure their investment in Epic delivers for their organisations, clinicians and patients.’
The NHS optimised solution is a resilient yet flexible cloud-based platform that can deliver Epic environments in hours rather than months, enabling a smoother and faster implementation.
The infrastructure is evergreen, meaning Epic upgrades can be easily tested and deployed, removing the need for unplanned technology investments or regular infrastructure refreshes. Healthcare organisations can therefore focus their time and resources on accelerating their digital maturity and broader data strategies.
Matthew Chase, healthcare chief technology officer, Fujitsu UK, and former deputy chief technology officer at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘Until now, trusts that wanted to run Epic had to create the infrastructure to host it on-premises or work with a third-party hosting service. Now, they have the option to have Fujitsu host it for them on AWS. That means trusts can look to get the resilience and flexibility of cloud computing, the benefits of Epic, and the support they need from Fujitsu and its partners to generate the cost savings and clinical benefits they expect, faster.’
