District health board Nelson Marlborough Health (NMH) has signed a multi-year seven-figure deal to move its core computing systems onto Revera’s Homeland IaaS Cloud platform.

The health board has started a transformation programme that will see the health provider’s systems, including hundreds of applications and databases, delivered from a data centre based in Christchurch.

With several health centres, and hospitals in Nelson, Wairau, and Murchison serving the region’s 142,000 residents, NMH’s move to IaaS is designed to deliver a more robust and scalable IT platform to support core applications, collaboration with other DHBs, and, longer term, a move to digitise patient services.      

Patrick Ng, NMH’s general manager support services, said the move followed a mandate set by DIA that required DHBs to adopt IaaS to address ageing storage infrastructure and end of warranty issues.

“We reviewed a range of IaaS options and liked Revera’s solution, which also gave us the opportunity to engage their sister company, CCL, in the transition process,” said Mr Ng. “The design met our health specific requirements in a format that could be easily adopted by other DHBs in the South Island Alliance.”

“In our situation IaaS didn’t offer an immediate financial benefit,” said Mr Ng. “However it provides a range of benefits important to our strategy, including right-sized investment in server and storage, improved resiliency, and keeping our technology current.”