Spain’s oldest hospital embraces digital age with smart solutions
Huawei Technologies’ data storage solutions allow Sant Pau in Barcelona to advance research in AI-driven medical image-guided therapy
Spain’s oldest hospital, first established in Barcelona in 1401, has constantly evolved over the years, with its current home completed only in 2009.
The purpose-built Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (Hospital of the Holy Cross and Saint Paul) stands next door to its spectacular former home, dubbed “the city within the city”, which is listed by Unesco as a World Heritage site.
The historic, Catalan Art Nouveau or Modernista-style park complex of 27 buildings set amid trees and gardens, was constructed from 1902 to 1930 to meet the last century’s more exacting demands for scientific medicine and hygienic principles. It is now a museum.
However, its changes have not only been aesthetic and architectural; Sant Pau hospital has always been quick to embrace healthcare advances including new medical techniques; it was the nation’s first hospital, for example, to offer neurology treatments.
The hospital is continuing to adapt to new healthcare trends, including the increasing benefits to the industry created by the global introduction of smart digital solutions, including cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI).
Medical records of patients, for example, which have been made by various doctors over the years at different clinics and hospitals, could be centralised and made readily accessible by digital storage to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment. It may eventually eliminate the need for repeat tests.
Storage resilience – where a storage system retains the ability to provide continuous access to data – is also important for digitalisation of data when it comes to the protection of medical records against computer problems such as hardware failures, software glitches or cyberattacks.
Since 2020, Huawei Technologies, a global provider of information and communication technology and smart devices, has been working closely with Sant Pau hospital to provide an all-flash data storage solution, which can provide medical staff with almost instant access to patient data whenever required. It can ensure the smooth, real-time transmission of high-definition images and videos, and even augmented reality and virtual reality experiences.
In addition, Huawei’s OceanStor data storage solution uses the latest back-up and recovery technologies, ensuring the highest levels of patient data protection. All data collection is carried out with the consent of patients and protected under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. It is stored and backed up across two data centres, ensuring continued access even if one of the centres were to face a disaster.
The use of these types of data storage are proving essential, not only for improving existing processes, but also implementing new technologies in the medical sector.
“The more technology you have, the more data it creates,” Simone Giertz, a Swedish inventor, roboticist and YouTuber, says in the first episode of the Warner Bros Discovery documentary series, Being Digi-Sapiens: Connecting with Ourselves, which was made with the support of Huawei. “[In the past], the data you had was just the notes your doctor took. Now, you have millions of data points for every patient.”
A 2020 report published by International Data Corporation, a market research and analytical company in the United States, showed that healthcare data was among the fastest growing segments of data throughout the 2010s.
It also predicted that in future, healthcare data would continue to grow by 48 per cent every year. Many large hospitals have already started accumulating data at the petabyte level – a unit of capacity that is 1,000 times larger than a terabyte (TB) and a million times larger than a gigabyte (GB) used in traditional storage devices.
This surge in the availability of healthcare data has been driven by the digitalisation of the industry and the growing use of advanced technologies. Electronic health records can now capture detailed patient histories, diagnostics and treatment plans, while telemedicine generates real-time data from remote consultations and wearable devices. These advances are also making healthcare more accessible and efficient.
AI technology is leading this trend by helping to predict the results of clinical trials, analyse medical images and detect early warning signs of diseases from X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
However, to perform these tasks effectively, AI is reliant on large datasets; it must be trained on an extensive range of medical data to accurately identify patterns and make predictions. As such, sophisticated data storage solutions are a prerequisite for making use of AI technology.
Sant Pau hospital’s collaboration with Huawei on data storage has allowed it to advance its research in fields including advanced medical imaging, AI and image-guided therapy. A new research group, led by Dr Josep Munuera, director of the hospital’s diagnostic imaging service, is using AI technology to develop predictive models.
He believes these advances could help tailor treatments to an individual patient’s needs with greater accuracy. Today, the use of AI to analyse X-ray and computerised tomography (CT) scans means diagnoses are 10 times as fast compared with five years ago.
Sant Pau hospital’s Dimension Lab is also benefiting from this digital transformation. The work of its director, Dr Abdel Hakim Moustafa, in 3D modeling, digital twins – accurate virtual representations of a physical object – and 3D-printed customised medical devices has revolutionised the traditional approach to surgeries. Personalised replicas of a patient’s organs can now be produced using 3D printers, which enables better planning and greater precision for complex procedures.
The collaborative efforts of tech companies, which provide the technical capabilities needed to implement AI and data-driven solutions, are essential for the continuing digital transformation of healthcare.
To date, Huawei has developed several key solutions, including Smart Hospital, Medical Technology Digitalization and Smart Ward, to help achieve that goal, and now serves over 5,000 hospitals and medical institutions in more than 110 countries and regions.
Through its smart solutions, such as OceanStor All-Flash Storage, Huawei not only enables hospitals to address their growing data needs but also paves the way for new research and innovation in medicine.
Kenneth Fredriksen, senior vice-president of Huawei Europe, says: “By working together with institutions like Sant Pau hospital, we hope to make life easier, safer, and more connected for communities across Europe.”