| | December 20159CIOReviewsolutions, which is used to survey and improve the performance and stability of our solutions.For example, Cerner records how long it takes for our solutions to process a clinician's medication or lab order. The goal is to provide the end user with a consistent and acceptable performance experience. Not only do we need to store this vast amount of data, but we need to perform analytics across the set and identify issues in near real-time. Three years ago, we selected HPE Vertica to house these massive amounts of static data that we needed to query and report on quickly. Being able to analyze workflows, such as the time it takes to place an order, allows us to identify and proactively address situations that may prevent clinicians from completing actions in an acceptable time. Analysis exposes opportunities for improving workflow, system tuning and even architecture design.To give perspective on the volume of data that I am referencing, Cerner collects 1 billion RTMS transactions per day across live client EHR systems around the world. RTMS transactions make up the largest data set, but it is only one of approximately 300 operational data parameters that Cerner collects. The totality of operational data that we collect in HPE Vertica equates to more than one terabyte per day, which is then stored for six months.With HPE Vertica's MPP solution, it only takes us a couple of seconds to query that full data set, a process that used to take a great deal of time and effort with a traditional relational database management system. Summarizing the data and making it available to our clients is now a completely automated process.Benefits to Health Care Providers Across the GlobeWith this advanced functionality, we were able to create an internal process where we proactively measure the performance of Cerner clients. When performance variance is identified by our statistical models, our team analyzes and identifies the nature of the variance. We can then create and apply a mitigation plan and audit process across all clients to ensure the variance never occurs again. In addition, we have established algorithms to compute across the RTMS data to determine retrospectively if clients are experiencing issues, what we call Performance Abnormality Flag (PAF) at Cerner. This means that even if a client had an issue, but never logged it or called for help, the team is now able to identify the PAF and research the problem. Each RTMS transaction that we log is like a breadcrumb ­ the physician placed an order, the physician pulled up the catalog to search for a specific medication, the physician placed an X-ray order into the scratch pad and then signed the order. By tracking each step, we have a holistic view of the path that physicians take through our solutions, which we call a transactional workflow. We can take those transactional workflows and compare them against other physicians who are taking more or less time to complete the same process. When we identify opportunities for improvement based on best transactional workflows, we can engage our consulting team to connect with the physician and provide additional training to help increase efficiency. The functionality that HPE Vertica provides Cerner enables us to take our data and truly enhance our analytic processes to produce improvements and efficiencies that directly impact our clients around the world. The goal is to provide the end user with a consistent and acceptable performance experienceDan Woicke
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