Oracle Customer Success — Ajou University Medical Center

Ajou University Medical Center

Ajou University Medical Center Strengthens Security for Sensitive Data, Minimizes Performance Degradation, and Meets Regulatory Requirements

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We chose Oracle Advanced Security, as it provides stable, fast, and cost-effective encryption that ensures security for our patient information and compliance with the stringent regulatory requirements for sensitive and confidential information. The solution saved us time and money because it required no modifications and was easy to implement, and it enabled us to meet government and hospital-customer expectations for data security.

— Myoung-Ryoul Hong, Manager, Medical Information, Ajou University Medical Center
Established in 1994, Ajou University Medical Center is a leading educational institution that provides patient-centered, healthcare training services. The center is the only medical school in Korea to be officially designated for both science and research by the government’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology. Ajou University Medical Center strives to create a global healthcare brand and reinforce its position as a prestigious medical training facility by actively engaging in research activities involving brain science and clinical research for the advancement of medicine.
 
Challenges
  • Strengthened data security for patients’ personal information, such as social security numbers, to prevent security leaks and meet government and hospital-customer expectations of data security due to recent information leaks from multiple companies in Korea and thefts of sensitive data
  • Provide a reliable and cost-effective database encryption solution to ensure regulatory compliance with stringent personal-information-protection requirements and to minimize the need to modify the existing hospital information system
  • Maintain the system’s low CPU-utilization rate, stability and rapid-response during the encryption process to avoid a negative impact on business operations, such as medical research activities
Results
  • Enhanced security for personal information in the hospital information system, such as social security numbers, patients’ and employees’ bank account and credit card data, by using Oracle Advanced Security, a database option, to provide selective redaction of sensitive data before displaying query results, preventing unauthorized system access and data breaches
  • Ensured compliance with the Korean Personal Information Protection Act and Amendment of Information and Communication Act, thanks to Oracle Advanced Security’s transparent data encryption and data redaction capabilities that enable consistent data protection
  • Minimized system performance degradation by using Oracle Database, which enabled data encryption directly in the database operating system without impacting response time or database operational activities, maintaining a CPU utilization rate of less than 30%
  • Ensured business continuity, such as for critical brain-science research activities, by using Oracle’s online, table-redefinition functionality to minimize system downtime to less than two hours during encryption
  • Reduced encryption costs by enforcing access controls at database and application layers without requiring changes to the application code or reconfiguration
  • Preserved data types and formats when returning transformed data to the system, including patients’ personal information, making it easier to support future data encryption
More

Why Oracle

After considering various security solutions, Ajou University Medical Center chose Oracle Advanced Security for its proven success in numerous domestic and international companies. It is also cost effective and highly stable, eliminating the need to install an additional agent or modify the hospital information system.
 

Our main concern was to minimize performance degradation after introducing the encryption application. Oracle Advanced Security was the ideal choice for us because it is an Oracle Database option that enables ease-of-deployment and requires no application changes. This enabled us to maintain database stability and reduce implementation costs.

— Myoung-Ryoul Hong, Manager, Medical Information, Ajou University Medical Center

Execution

Ajou University Medical Center installed Oracle Database before implementing the encryption solution. The process involved data migration and database encryption testing to ensure the new system maintained a stable operation. 

About Ajou University Medical Center

Headquarters

 
Suwon, Korea

Employees

 
3,000

Annual Revenue

 
$100 to $500 Million

Partners

Oracle partner, ATEC Information & Communication Corp. provided consultancy and technical support to Ajou University Medical Center throughout the database encryption project.
 
“ATEC Information & Communication’s rich experience and skills, accumulated through a variety of previous projects, ensured the success of this project and enabled us to utilize Oracle Advanced Security technology to maintain reliable database performance and reduce encryption costs,” said Myoung-Ryoul Hong.

Oracle Solutions Used

Oracle Database
Oracle Advanced Security
Published:  Feb 03, 2015