Dell Medical School announced a deal with a San Antonio-based data storage company, where the company will host the school’s healthcare data for all future clinics and hospitals, according to an Aug. 12 news release.

The partnership with Rackspace, an AI-based data company, will eliminate the need to build a physical data center for future projects.

“Partnering with Rackspace for our hosted data center needs is crucial to our continued success,” said Michael Ryan, chief information officer and chief administrative officer at Dell Med.

The specific program Dell Med adopted is called Epic, which Rackspace will run for the school to store its electronic health records, said Cindy Hardin, senior client executive at Rackspace.

“Rackspace has a team in our healthcare division that’s dedicated to supporting Epic … so that Dell Medical doesn’t have to have the expertise in house,” Hardin said.

Hardin said Rackspace will also store all files in both Dallas and Chicago so the data is protected in case one data center is damaged by weather or another event in one city.

“In the state of Texas, there’s definitely been power issues that we have to make sure we’re protected (from),” Hardin said.

While a transition to third-party data storage may raise privacy concerns, Hardin said the data Rackspace has is stored securely. She said Rackspace has security measures in place for accessing the data storage.

“All of our resources that support the (data storage) are in the U.S.,” Hardin said. “In addition to that, (Rackspace has) other security measures around … specifics on who’s handling the data.”

Hardin said the deal could be the beginning of collaborations with other projects in the UT System. She said deals with other UT organizations are in the works.

Harjott Atrii, Rackspace’s chief revenue officer, said in a news release the deal will benefit both Rackspace and Dell Med.

“We recognize the importance of being a trusted partner in healthcare technology,” said Atrii in the news release. “Our experience in delivering critical capabilities positions us to effectively support Dell Med’s mission, demonstrating how advanced cloud solutions can redefine Healthcare IT.”