Medical Advancements
PetaSite

 

Data Storage Center

Kuakini Medical Center, First Floor

Kuakini Health System and Sony Corporation unveiled the second Sony PetaSite mass storage system in Hawaii on January of 2001. The new PetaSite is the most advanced mass data storage system in Hawaii andthe first piece of equipment to be installed at Kuakini as part of a $2 million donation from Sony Corporation, Sony Corporation of America and Sony Hawaii Company.

As a result the digital revolution that started in the 1990s, companies in the 21st century require dynamic systems that can store large quantities of data from various sources and provide rapid retrieval for data access. The PetaSite provides mass data storage utilizing a cost-effective tape format that holds 200 gigabytes of data per cassette. The PetaSite is also expandable. The basic PetaSite platform has a capacity of 5.4 terabytes. Kuakini's PetaSite will have a capacity of 62 terabytes. One terabyte is equal to 1 million megabytes.

The only other PetaSite in Hawaii is connected to the Subaru Telescope at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan on the Big Island. The Subaru Telescope PetaSite uses DTF (Digital Tape Format)-1 tapes. Kuakini's PetaSite will use the newer DTF-2 tapes. DTF-2 tapes can store up to 200 gigabytes, double the storage capacity of DTF-1 tapes. The newer tapes are also faster; they transmit information at a 24 megabytes a second, double the speed of the DTF-1. This technology will allow Kuakini to store data (text and video) and diagnostic images that would normally fill the shelves of many movable storage racks in Medical Records, Imaging Services and Education Services. All of the data on paper, film, and videocassettes will be placed on one-half inch DTF tapes.

Kuakini plans to use the PetaSite in conjunction with its PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System) and in doing so Kuakini becomes only the fourth medical facility in the world to integrate a PetaSite with PACS for digital images. There are two medical facilities in Canada and one in Colorado, USA that have earlier versions of the PetaSite at 5.4 terabytes to store medical images. This means that Kuakini is the first medical facility to have a large storage capacity PetaSite. The other three medical facilities currently have basic platforms with 5.4 terabytes capacity. Kuakini's PetaSite has nearly twelve times that capacity.

Kuakini will also be the first in the world to use the PetaSite to store multiple diagnostic modalities and multiple data types including digital imaging, video, and textual data for patient care, telemedicine applications and research.  In addition to basic radiological images, Kuakini will also be using the PetaSite to store nuclear medicine scans, ultrasound images, computerized echocardiography images, digital video imaging of angiography and cardiac catheterization lab procedures, pathology tissue images, training videos, billing records, patients' medical records and research data. All of these digital images, video and data will be stored on the PetaSite; and because of the large quantity of storage space and long lifespan of the DTF-2 tapes, can be held for up to 30 years without duplicating the tapes. Information stored in the PetaSite will also be available for telemedicine applications such as physician consultation and training over distance and for research initiatives.

Kuakini is also the first in the world to use Sony's proprietary PetaServe, a software that runs the PetaSite, and is certified for use with Kuakini's PACS made by AGFA. AGFA's certification is necessary to validate that the medical images stored from the PACS into the PetaSite and later retrieved from the PetaSite by the PACS are meeting established quality standards for the medical use of these images.

The PetaSite at Kuakini is valued at over $300,000 and is the first part of Sony's $2 million donation. The other equipment to be installed this year from the donation will include state-of-the-art digital video/audio equipment, which will be used in Kuakini's Board Room, Hale Pulama Mau Auditorium and future Education and Training Center. The video images captured and edited on the Sony equipment will be stored on the PetaSite.

Other companies that currently use a PetaSite for broadcast video and/or data storage include are CNN, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The United States Library of Congress, New Mexico Power, EMC Corporation and Disney.