By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital is looking at spending more than $1 million to upgrade information technology (IT) systems the CEO describes as “ancient.”

The Board of Managers on Monday approved a motion to spend $395,000 to upgrade medical imaging software and $1 million to change their server from in-house to cloud-based through a contracted company.

MMH CEO Robert Wolleben said outsourcing the server will not only improve security, but save six figures over the next five years.

He said their current server, which runs on hardware at MMH, is based on the 2003 version of the Windows operating system.

“[That version of Windows] has been hacked so much, it’s like a big garage door somebody could hack their way through and steal everything,” Wolleben said.

They will contract with Cloud Wave, who will oversee their server on their cloud.

“They manage a lot of hospital facilities with metatech in the cloud,” Wolleben said. “It’s a much more secure system then if we manage it.”

He said they will save $350,000 over five years by delegating security, hardware management, software upgrades and other tasks to Cloud Wave.

The board also approved spending $395,000 to buy new MMH radiology department imaging software from Fuji.

Wolleben said the current system is from 2007 or 2008.

“In IT parlance, that’s ancient,” Wolleben said.

He said they are still doing all mammography and some x-ray procedures using film, and the new system will eliminate that.

“This will allow us to finally get rid of film,” Wolleben said.

He said the current system is “on its last legs.”

“If it crashed, that would create a significant problem for patient care,” Wolleben said.