Healthcare practitioners rely on connected, resilient technology platforms to maintain critical patient data and to help manage the vast array of lifesaving medicines and resources that they use to treat people and save lives.

Blood, plasma, tissues and cells are used in lifesaving treatments every day and Datacom – working alongside AWS – has recently helped rollout a new and more secure, scalable and reliable blood and biologics platform to underpin the critical operations of a local blood services organisation.

The blood services organisation is one of hundreds of organisations around the world, including other blood centres, plasma centres, transfusion services, tissue banks, stem cell labs, hospitals and healthcare providers, that use the blood and biologics management software of a major global provider.

For decades that software was delivered via traditional models, but now the organisation – which is estimated to help manage nearly 1 in 3 blood donations globally – has shifted to an AWS cloud-based platform to ensure it can continue to meet growing demand, now and in the future.

Delivering this critical software via a cloud platform means the organisation now has massive scalability and global reach, and their team has said it will allow them to take their blood management capabilities to the next level and “make a greater impact on the lives of patients and healthcare providers around the world”.

Moving to a cloud-based platform has also created a range of opportunities to innovate and better connect with patients, donors, and healthcare organisations, to strengthen safety and privacy, and ultimately improve donations and care.

“The adoption of a cloud platform for the management of blood and biological medical products will dramatically increase the speed of innovation and delivery for clients taking advantage of technologies such as autoscaling, automated environment test and build and the use of serverless and container systems, ushering in a new era of efficiency and access to cutting edge technologies for blood and biologics.”

The blood services organisation in New Zealand was the first global customer for the new platform so the Datacom team played a crucial role in designing and constructing the global landing zone, an AWS-based centralised environment which is serving the healthcare software company’s diverse customer base worldwide.

Embracing the Hub and Spoke model, the Datacom team strategically implemented several specialised hubs, including Networkhub, Securityhub, OrganizationHub, BackupsHub, and SharedServices. These hubs played a pivotal role in refining and optimising the overall architecture of the global landing zone.

The Datacom team also:

  • Ensured compliance with HIPAA regulations and prioritised data security by implementing robust data encryption using Customer Managed Keys (CMK-KMS) within AWS.
  • Leveraged MacSec to encrypt data traffic over the Direct Connect, ensuring data privacy and integrity during transfers between on-premises and AWS.
  • Employed Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles with Terraform streamlined and standardized infrastructure deployment, enhancing speed and reducing the risk of human errors.
  • Used serverless services to optimise cost management and improved scalability.
  • Followed industry best practice for application deployment on EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service), enforcing Pod admission control with digitally signed application container images to strengthen security and minimise potential threats.
  • Throughout the development, the Datacom team upheld security, performance, and operational excellence as core tenets, establishing a resilient foundation for the deployment of the platform within a secure and efficient global landing zone for the company’s healthcare clients around the world.

The shift from a traditional software model to a cloud-based platform for the management of blood and biologics is providing easier interoperability between systems and improved access to modern cloud-based AI tools, which will enable the next generation of AI driven analytics, predictions, and novel practices and insights in blood and gene therapy. It has been described as “an exciting step forwards towards supporting modern and innovative practices in blood and biologics”.

Datacom has helped multiple large and complex organisations undertake digital transformation and prepare for future growth and innovation opportunities with AWS as the foundation, including NZ Post in New Zealand and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action in Australia, where they enabled DEECA to achieve a 65% reduction in cost to operate. 

Related industries
Healthcare
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Cloud services Platforms & applications