Data Management Solution for a Healthcare Company

Project: Building a healthcare data management process to support transparency and security of medical data.

Duration: 6 months

Tech stack: Apache Airflow, Snowflake Cloud Platform, Azure Blob Storage, Kubernetes

Integrations: WellSky Personal Care, Home Care Pulse, QuickBooks

Our Client provides a range of care services for seniors and adults with disabilities who require help in their daily routines. Experienced caregivers assist individuals with household chores, personal care, or special treatment for various medical conditions.

Key Highlights

Challenge

Insufficient skill sets were not the only challenge the Client faced. The low bandwidth of their tech partner entailed a range of consequences for the company’s products and ongoing projects. Among them were compromised platform security, delays in the delivery of new functionality, and increased costs.

On top of that, this inability to scale up the team forced the Client’s internal team to micromanage tasks, and that naturally hindered overall efficiency. So, it was the moment to find a new technology partner that could support the required scalability and experience.

Specifically, expertise in building data engineering solutions was of utmost importance. Since the Client worked with vast data sets of personal health information, they were especially focused on data security and quality aspects as well as compliance with HIPAA standards.

More than 20 years of experience in healthtech development and providing data management services for healthcare organizations have helped us accurately pinpoint the areas of improvement and solutions to address them. After a few virtual meetings with the company, Velvetech was ready to ramp up a full-service development team and take on the project.

Process

Basically, what the Client was looking for was optimizing their data workflows, reducing the number of inaccurate recordings, and ensuring effective utilization of resources. There were several third-party solutions the company interacted with that required integrity in terms of data exchange. That’s exactly what our team decided to start with, moving on to other project parts next.

Integration with Third-Party Tools

First, we connected the company’s platform with WellSky Personal Care, which the Client used for organizing home care delivery, managing appointment scheduling, and documentation. This integration added transparency for caregivers, providing them with a data overview from a single place.

Next, there was Home Care Pulse software that also waited for integration with the company’s solution to provide a more holistic picture of caregivers’ performance. Once that was done, the company could get more insights through data analytics and leverage them to provide training for personnel and build a stronger employer brand. All that underpinned the delivery of high-quality care.

Lastly, QuickBooks was the tool used at the company for managing financial data. Velvetech has hands-on experience with implementing this software; thus, it was an easy undertaking to connect two platforms and enable accurate billing, budget management, and financial reporting.

Data Management Boost

At this stage, we collaborated closely with the Client to optimize the way they processed data. For that, our team went into detail about the specific company’s needs and developed a roadmap aligned with their requirements. Concretely, there were several data engineering initiatives that resulted in a custom healthcare data management solution to support effective workflows.

Apache Airflow for Efficient Data Extraction

Leveraging Apache Airflow allowed our team to establish seamless data extraction and transfer processes. Designed to ensure timely and reliable data retrieval, this solution enabled the company to move data from various sources, including the aforementioned WellSky Personal Care, Home Care Pulse, and QuickBooks, into their sole ecosystem.

Snowflake for Scalable and Secure Warehouse

The company had quite large chunks of unstructured data, like patient information, caregiver schedules, medical records, billing information, and more. While it was stored mostly in Azure Blob Storage, it was necessary to come up with an effective data warehousing solution to ensure more data integrity and provide better scalability and security of resources.

The Client chose Snowflake as a central piece of their warehousing needs since its unique architecture provides a cloud-native, scalable, and secure environment for managing vast amounts of healthcare data. Velvetech knew well how to work with this platform and set effective processes to load, analyze, and report on massive volumes of the company’s data.

Eventually, Blob seamlessly complemented Snowflake, and their integration facilitated the optimal use of resources. Importing data from Azure Blob Storage to Snowflake aligns with best practices for cloud-based data warehousing, so it helps the Client achieve more cost-efficiency, optimize storage, and manage data in a more transparent way.

Automated Unit Tests and Data Cleansing

To enhance the reliability and accuracy of the data processed and ensure its integrity, we implemented automated unit tests and put in place data cleansing mechanisms. With DevOps professionals at the heart of many projects we deliver, they were the ones to support QA and data engineers in this project, too.

Together, the team worked to design unit tests for data workflows and integrate them into CI/CD pipelines. These automated tests were coupled with manual validations and implemented in the pre-production environment to minimize the risk of data anomalies and discrepancies in the live system. Overall, these initiatives resulted in a higher standard of data quality and ensured, though indirectly, secure data management, which is vital for healthcare organizations.

Outcome

Thanks to our effective partnership, the company’s platform experienced a significant boost. The integration of new technologies and systems, expert teams, and enhanced data management processes not only addressed the initial challenges but also positioned the company for future success in delivering health care services.

Ultimately, with a full-service development team covering the gaps of another vendor’s low bandwidth, the Client saw new opportunities to plan initiatives and achieve tangible benefits, including increased ROI and cost savings. All that while ensuring sustainable growth as a provider and staying compliant with the industry regulations.