Transforming Patient Care with AI: How Sentara Health Leverages Silk’s AI Cloud Storage Platform

In the fast-evolving healthcare landscape, innovation is not just an option—it’s a necessity. Sentara Health, a leading healthcare provider with 12 hospitals and over 300 care sites, is at the forefront of this innovation by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its care delivery processes. Guided by a commitment to patient-centric care, Sentara is revolutionizing how data is used to empower clinicians, enhance operations, and provide better outcomes for patients. At the core of this transformation is Sentara’s partnership with Silk, a high-performance software-defined cloud storage platform.

AI in Action: A Patient-Centered Approach

AI plays a crucial role at Sentara Health, from advanced imaging and cancer detection to optimizing clinical workflows. By employing AI, Sentara can:

• Enhance Clinician Efficiency: AI-powered systems allow clinicians to focus on patient care by minimizing administrative burdens, such as paperwork.
• Improve Patient Accessibility: From automating prescription refills to delivering real-time information, AI ensures that patients receive timely and accurate support.
• Optimize Operations: AI streamlines internal processes, such as approvals and information flow, reducing delays and improving decision-making.

However, the true power of AI lies in its ability to integrate data seamlessly. This is where Silk’s software-defined cloud storage platform enables Sentara to unlock the full potential of its AI initiatives.

Silk: Powering Real-Time AI Insights

For Sentara, the real-time value of data is paramount. AI systems need immediate access to data from electronic medical records (EMRs), claim systems, and other sources to generate actionable insights. Silk’s platform ensures this data is available when needed without compromising system performance.

Here’s how Silk empowers Sentara’s AI-driven initiatives:

• Accelerating Data Access: With Silk, the replication of core EMR data to downstream systems has been reduced from 840 minutes to just 15 minutes. This seven-hour daily savings allows physicians to access critical data sooner, improving patient care.
• Secure, Cost-Effective Data Utilization: The Silk Echo snapshot capabilities enable Sentara to create secure, non-production copies of production data for AI model development, all while ensuring data masking and compliance.
• Maximizing Resources: Sentara achieves significant cost savings by reducing storage requirements and optimizing SQL licensing. For example, the organization manages an 80-terabyte production database, which Silk transforms into 630 terabytes of usable value across lower environments, cutting costs by 30-70%.
• Seamless AI Integration: By delivering a real-time view of transactional data, Silk ensures that Sentara’s AI agents can generate insights quickly and accurately, whether for patient care or operational optimization.

The Future of Healthcare with AI and Silk

Sentara’s success in leveraging AI is a testament to its forward-thinking approach and the capabilities of Silk’s platform. By prioritizing real-time, secure, and cost-effective data access, Sentara can make better decisions, faster—decisions that directly impact patient care.

As Jeff Thomas, Sentara’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, puts it, “Silk provides a platform to really address your data in a cost-effective way, so you can do the right things with that data.”

For healthcare providers and payers looking to transform their data infrastructure and harness the power of AI, Silk offers a proven solution that balances innovation, efficiency, and security. Sentara Health’s journey with Silk highlights what’s possible when technology meets a mission to improve lives.