Download PDF
Research Facility Releases Application Updates 4 X Times More Frequently
Technology Category
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Healthcare & Hospitals
- Life Sciences
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Quality Assurance
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Prior to using LiveRebel, the LIMS team responsible for the application pushed updates once or twice a month. Updates were disruptive but necessary to add new features and fix bugs. To carry them out, the team notified all users of the impending downtime due to the update, published a maintenance window notification on the website, and spent about 1 hour after work hours to push updates and restore service. The IT team often received inquiries on when service would be restored, or complaints about the downtime. Despite the downtime caused by the maintenance windows, the facility’s management pushed for more frequent application updates that quickly responded to feature requests and bugs.
About The Customer
The Canadian research facility is an innovative, scientific collaboration between four research hospitals to operate a centralized, state-of-the-art research-enabling facility. This joint venture involving multiple hospitals pools resources and expertise to achieve excellence and economies of scale. The facility provides a web-based application that serves as a facility management and collaboration platform for researchers from member hospitals and health institutions. It enables users to manage their projects, including tracking genetic information, scheduling and assigning tasks, managing project finances, tracking regulatory and compliance data, and viewing reports. This web-based application is critical to business operations. Users rely on it to pursue research projects and use the facility’s services.
The Solution
To increase release velocity, the team chose LiveRebel because it enabled them to automate deployments without causing any or only minimal downtime. Furthermore, its automated rollback on failure capability gave them the assurances they needed to increase release velocity safely. They integrated LiveRebel with Bamboo, their continuous integration tool, to build out a continuous delivery pipeline. As a result, the team was able to practice continuous delivery safely, by releasing updates from development and testing to production through the automated release pipeline with no downtime. Deployment failures, although rare, are fully rolled back before users are impacted. LiveRebel’s zero downtime update capability enabled the team to release bug fixes as soon as they are available, thereby taking updates to users faster. Major releases occur once a quarter and involve database changes that are run manually which causes some downtime. LiveRebel automated application deployments quickly and safely. Although informed, users are not impacted during updates which are pushed during business hours.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Hospital Inventory Management
The hospital supply chain team is responsible for ensuring that the right medical supplies are readily available to clinicians when and where needed, and to do so in the most efficient manner possible. However, many of the systems and processes in use at the cancer center for supply chain management were not best suited to support these goals. Barcoding technology, a commonly used method for inventory management of medical supplies, is labor intensive, time consuming, does not provide real-time visibility into inventory levels and can be prone to error. Consequently, the lack of accurate and real-time visibility into inventory levels across multiple supply rooms in multiple hospital facilities creates additional inefficiency in the system causing over-ordering, hoarding, and wasted supplies. Other sources of waste and cost were also identified as candidates for improvement. Existing systems and processes did not provide adequate security for high-cost inventory within the hospital, which was another driver of cost. A lack of visibility into expiration dates for supplies resulted in supplies being wasted due to past expiry dates. Storage of supplies was also a key consideration given the location of the cancer center’s facilities in a dense urban setting, where space is always at a premium. In order to address the challenges outlined above, the hospital sought a solution that would provide real-time inventory information with high levels of accuracy, reduce the level of manual effort required and enable data driven decision making to ensure that the right supplies were readily available to clinicians in the right location at the right time.
Case Study
Gas Pipeline Monitoring System for Hospitals
This system integrator focuses on providing centralized gas pipeline monitoring systems for hospitals. The service they provide makes it possible for hospitals to reduce both maintenance and labor costs. Since hospitals may not have an existing network suitable for this type of system, GPRS communication provides an easy and ready-to-use solution for remote, distributed monitoring systems System Requirements - GPRS communication - Seamless connection with SCADA software - Simple, front-end control capability - Expandable I/O channels - Combine AI, DI, and DO channels
Case Study
Driving Digital Transformations for Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices
Diagnostic devices play a vital role in helping to improve healthcare delivery. In fact, an estimated 60 percent of the world’s medical decisions are made with support from in vitrodiagnostics (IVD) solutions, such as those provided by Roche Diagnostics, an industry leader. As the demand for medical diagnostic services grows rapidly in hospitals and clinics across China, so does the market for IVD solutions. In addition, the typically high cost of these diagnostic devices means that comprehensive post-sales services are needed. Wanteed to improve three portions of thr IVD:1. Remotely monitor and manage IVD devices as fixed assets.2. Optimizing device availability with predictive maintenance.3. Recommending the best IVD solution for a customer’s needs.
Case Study
HaemoCloud Global Blood Management System
1) Deliver a connected digital product system to protect and increase the differentiated value of Haemonetics blood and plasma solutions. 2) Improve patient outcomes by increasing the efficiency of blood supply flows. 3) Navigate and satisfy a complex web of global regulatory compliance requirements. 4) Reduce costly and labor-intensive maintenance procedures.
Case Study
Harnessing real-time data to give a holistic picture of patient health
Every day, vast quantities of data are collected about patients as they pass through health service organizations—from operational data such as treatment history and medications to physiological data captured by medical devices. The insights hidden within this treasure trove of data can be used to support more personalized treatments, more accurate diagnosis and more advanced preparative care. But since the information is generated faster than most organizations can consume it, unlocking the power of this big data can be a struggle. This type of predictive approach not only improves patient care—it also helps to reduce costs, because in the healthcare industry, prevention is almost always more cost-effective than treatment. However, collecting, analyzing and presenting these data-streams in a way that clinicians can easily understand can pose a significant technical challenge.