Transforming Patient Care with AI: How Sentara Health Leverages Silk’s Virtual SAN For AI

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 Virtual Storage Area Network (Virtual SAN) that is purpose-built for the cloud.

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 cloud-native Virtual SAN enables Sentara to unlock the full potential of its AI initiatives.

Silk: Powering Real-Time AI Insights

Silk is a cloud-native Virtual SAN that sits between cloud compute and cloud storage, delivering the performance, efficiency, and cost control required for modern AI workloads. By providing unmatched IOPS, throughput, and latency – along with zero overprovisioning and effortless copy data management – Silk enables Sentara to achieve real-time insights at enterprise scale.

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 dramatic acceleration ensures that physicians and AI models can access fresh data nearly in real time.

Effortless, Zero‑Cost Data Copies

Silk’s cloud-native cloning capabilities allow Sentara to spin up infinite copies of production data in seconds – with zero storage cost. This enables rapid AI experimentation, model training, and analytics without duplicating cloud spend.

Cost Efficiency and Rightsizing

Silk eliminates the need to overprovision cloud storage or compute, helping Sentara reduce storage fees and optimize database licensing. For example, Sentara manages an 80-terabyte production database that Silk expands into 630 terabytes of usable value across lower environments, driving a 30–70% reduction in cloud costs.

Unmatched Cloud Performance

Silk ensures that Sentara’s AI systems receive consistent, high-speed access to EMR, claims, and operational data – regardless of workload spikes. With purpose-built AI performance, Silk removes bottlenecks that traditionally slow down model inference and data processing.

Multi-Cloud Flexibility

Silk’s Virtual SAN provides a consistent storage experience across clouds, giving organizations the freedom to run workloads where it makes the most sense – without being locked into a single cloud vendor.

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 cloud-native Virtual SAN. By prioritizing real-time, secure, and cost-effective access to the data that powers AI, Sentara can make better decisions faster – decisions that directly enhance patient outcomes.

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 modernize their data infrastructure and accelerate AI transformation, Silk offers a proven solution built for performance, efficiency, and innovation. Sentara Health’s journey with Silk highlights what’s possible when advanced technology meets a mission to improve lives.