Franciscan Healthcare Sees $200,000 Annual Reduction in Cloud Storage Costs with Silk on Azure

And now for the details.

Franciscan Healthcare Overview

Franciscan Healthcare is a leading 12-hospital system operating across the Midwest, from Indianapolis to Chicago. Committed to innovation, the organization provides extensive telemedicine and virtual care services to meet the needs of its diverse patient population. With a focus on embracing cutting-edge technology, Franciscan Healthcare has recently undertaken transformative initiatives, including the migration of its electronic medical records (EMR) to the cloud, creating data adjacency with a state-of-the-art data lakehouse. These advancements aim to enhance service delivery while supporting the growing demand for advanced analytics and AI-driven solutions.

Business Challenges

As Franciscan Healthcare expanded its technological footprint, managing the balance between cost and performance became a pressing challenge. The organization required a solution that could handle the significant storage and compute demands of its cloud-based EMR and data lakehouse without compromising on reliability or scalability. Disaster recovery posed another critical concern, as rapid data restoration is paramount in healthcare operations. Additionally, Franciscan sought to position itself for future innovations, such as developing proprietary large language models (LLMs), without incurring unsustainable storage costs.

Introducing Silk

Initially hesitant about adopting cloud-based virtualized storage technology, Franciscan Healthcare’s leadership engaged in extensive research and collaboration with Silk. The robust safety measures and advanced replication capabilities of Silk’s platform alleviated concerns, ultimately earning trust. By leveraging Silk’s high-performance software-defined cloud storage solutions, Franciscan was able to replicate data rapidly, support its disaster recovery efforts, and optimize storage costs. This partnership also enabled the organization to scale its operations without over-investing in physical infrastructure, ensuring flexibility for both current needs and future growth.

Results

Silk’s innovative storage technology delivered transformative results for Franciscan Healthcare. The organization achieved significant cost savings, estimating an annual reduction of $200,000 in storage expenses. Disaster recovery times improved dramatically, with data restoration processes shortened from 24 hours to mere hours. Silk’s platform provided the agility to manage and replicate vast data volumes efficiently, paving the way for Franciscan to explore AI-driven advancements, such as creating proprietary LLMs. The collaboration with Silk not only enhanced the performance and cost-efficiency of Franciscan’s infrastructure but also reinforced its mission to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care.