Segment: Healthcare

Location: Afton, WY

Product: Eaton 9170+ with service plan

Problem: Following a power outage-induced server crash, the hospital sought a highly reliable and scalable UPS to safeguard its multi-million-dollar IT investment.

Results: With its modular design and inherent redundancy, the Eaton 9170+ delivers much-needed immunity against a wide variety of power problems.

Background

Whether a patient requires simple stitches or major surgery, Star Valley Medical Center (SVMC) offers a skilled staff trained in a wide variety of specialties, including Family Practice, General Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Orthopedics, Oncology and Cardiology, among others. Healthcare is also available to patients at several outreach clinics throughout the community. 

Challenge

With budgetary restrictions always a consideration for SVMC, it isn’t unusual for the critical access hospital to accept some previously used equipment from other medical centers. Such was the case with an uninterruptible power system (UPS) that SVMC deployed a few years ago. “We put in a UPS in our server room and didn’t think too much about it,” explains Mike Hunsaker, chief operating officer at SVMC. “But then we had a power outage and all of our servers crashed, resulting in 12 hours of downtime.” Following the crisis, the hospital engaged with an electrical engineering firm to help design a power protection solution capable of safeguarding its $4 million medical IT investment, which includes four server banks and the facility’s cable TV head-end, among other critical devices. “Those servers house our electronic medical record system for our entire operation, so it was really important for us to get something to protect that equipment,” Hunsaker emphasizes.

Solution

The perfect Rx for the hospital turned out to be the Eaton 9170+ UPS. An ideal solution for applications seeking unparalleled reliability, the 9170+ delivers the highest level of power protection by eliminating single point-offailure with N+X power and logic redundancy. Even more, because the 9170+ houses both the logic and power within its modules and not within the enclosure, redundancy is facilitated for the entire UPS.

In addition, the unit addressed SVMC’s desire for scalability with a modular design featuring plug-and-play 3 kVA battery and UPS modules, which allow customers to build a solution to match existing specifications while still allowing for future growth. “We will be able to grow our server farm into the future without a fork lift change-out to a larger UPS,” Hunsaker points out. Just as important as installing the proper UPS was SVMC’s decision to protect its investment with an Eaton service agreement that includes preventive maintenance visits. After all, regularly scheduled checkups have proven to be one of the most simple and costeffective ways to preserve the ongoing health of a UPS. “We are a small critical access hospital, and most staff members wear three or four different hats,” Hunsaker explains. This, in turn, can make tasks such as inspecting a UPS susceptible to falling through the cracks. “As a result, the one we had in place didn’t work when we needed it to.”

Thanks to its Eaton service plan, the hospital no longer has to worry about whether its UPS will perform as expected when needed. “Having a maintenance contract means a lot to us because the Eaton professionals will be the ones thinking about it now,” Hunsaker reveals.

SVMC, which is located in a remote area, was amazed by the punctuality of Eaton’s customer service engineer (CSE) right out of the gate, beginning with scheduling the startup of the 9170+. Despite the fact that the CSE was working some 400 miles away on the other side of the state, he showed up right on time—even on a weekend. “Since most of our maintenance guys come from other states, it means a lot when someone actually arrives when they say they’ll be here,” Hunsaker shares. “When we talked on the phone and he said he’d come on Saturday, I was pretty skeptical. Yet he showed up exactly when said he would and had us up and running. We really appreciated that great customer service.”

As SVMC prepares for its first scheduled preventive maintenance visit, Hunsaker says he was impressed that the CSE reached out to him to arrange the service. “Eaton is really on top of things, which makes it so much easier on us,” he explains. We don’t have to worry about keeping track of when service needs to be performed or what needs to be done. They oversee all of it.” The hospital’s high level of satisfaction has extended to Eaton’s support center, as well. At one point following the unit’s installation, SVMC experienced an unfamiliar alarm emitting from the 9170+. “All it took was a quick phone call to the service desk and they worked with us to clear the alarm,” Hunsaker recalls. “I’ve been really pleased with their response to any maintenance questions we have had. They are very helpful.”

To gain additional peace of mind, SVMC is strongly considering bolstering the 9170+ UPS and service agreement with Eaton’s PredictPulse in the upcoming budget year. A next-level remote monitoring and management service like PredictPulse would collect and analyze data from connected power infrastructure devices, providing the insight needed to make recommendations and take action.

Results

Thanks to the 9170+ UPS, SVMC is confident that its IT systems will remain healthy at all times. With the Eaton solution in place, the hospital is able to:

• Provide 100% clean, continuous power to the connected load
• Easily bolster runtime or capacity through the unit’s plug-and-play modules
• Keep a constant pulse on all power infrastructure devices through PredictPulse
• Ensure the ongoing health of its solution with an Eaton service plan, including preventive maintenance