Flexential Empowers Floyd Medical Center’s COVID Relief Initiative

By AIT News Desk On Jul 29, 2020

During pandemic and beyond, Floyd depends on Flexential to keep critical data safe and secure

Flexential, a leading provider of data center colocation and hybrid IT solutions, announced its partnership with Floyd health system, a not-for-profit system covering more than 40 medical specialties across Georgia and Alabama. By housing and managing critical data for flagship hospital Floyd Medical Center, Flexential has enabled Floyd to work on its core business – uninterrupted during these unprecedented times.

Back in March, Floyd Medical Center had one of the first COVID-19 patients in the state of Georgia and needed to prepare for a potential landslide of cases. To do so, the hospital took over two floors in a former long-term acute care facility adjoined to the hospital and converted that space into COVID units, with negative air pressure rooms, in-room devices and networks, phones, beds, printers and everything needed to receive patients, all within the equivalent of a weekend of time.

Not knowing how significant the COVID population would get, Floyd also converted half of its parking deck into a 100-bed field hospital running data, electrical, sprinklers and all the infrastructure needed, and configured a 20-bed hospital with a nursing unit, nursing station, and the ability to run any data or telephony network into any of the above locations. A number of the clinical and financial applications accessed in these newly built-out locations were hosted through Flexential, including applications like bed control to manage the logistics of which patients go where and systems for b****** and registration. With secure storage and easy access to their data, thanks to Flexential, Floyd was able to seamlessly connect its new locations while focusing on what really matters – patient care.

“We were able to lean on the Flexential team to manage our data securely – much of it potentially lifesaving to patients, both in and out of a pandemic, while we had all-hands-on-deck with the COVID crisis,” said Jeff Buda, Floyd Vice President and Chief Information Officer. “Amid the COVID crisis, we were also in the process of expanding in Flexential’s Atlanta – Alpharetta data center. The team was flawless in its execution, with Flexential becoming a true partner to us. We have been so impressed with the level of service and support.”

When COVID hit, Floyd’s primary care practices, which had never done telemedicine before, all wanted it overnight. To conserve PPE and promote safety and social distancing, Floyd stood up telemedicine within a few weeks, adopting a purpose-built telemedicine platform that saw nearly 3,000 virtual visits between March and May. Flexential was key to enabling this, providing such seamless and instant access to Floyd’s data that they were able to start 50 different practices with telemedicine.

“In times of crisis, we at Flexential pride ourselves on being a steady hand to guide and support our customers,” said Chief Revenue Officer, Patrick Doherty, Flexential. “This is a true example of how the work of our essential data center employees goes far beyond the four walls of our data centers. By giving other essential businesses, like Floyd, the custom support they need every step of the way Flexential is empowering technology, and touching the lives of medical staff and patients, ensuring they never have to worry about the safety or accessibility of data in the face these challenging times.”