Business Automation Experts: Enabling MedRespond's Market Success

MedRespond, a healthcare technology company, sought to improve patient engagement and the experience of their patient education platform by integrating their platform with Epic’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) system with a large Academic Medical Center in Ohio for Cardiac surgical patient engagement. Business Automation Experts (BAE) played a pivotal role in strategizing, architecting, implementing, and optimizing this integration. Through a structured, phased approach, BAE ensured seamless integration, optimized infrastructure, addressed security concerns, and overcame third-party development challenges to deliver a scalable, secure, and stable solution that delights thousands of surgical patients per year.

Project Overview

Business Challenge

MedRespond, a medical software company, required a partner capable of guiding its integration with Epic EMR, optimizing its cloud infrastructure, securing compliance with a large academic medical center in the northeastern United States, and ensuring long-term scalability. The challenges included:

• Developing a clear integration strategy that would secure buy-in from stakeholders.
• Addressing security requirements raised by the Academic Medical Center security team.
• Overcoming resistance from MedRespond’s existing third-party development team.
• Reducing operational costs while improving performance.

Solution

BAE, supported by Matt Lepkowski, executed a multi-phase engagement that spanned integration architecture, security audits, infrastructure optimization, and system stabilization.

 

Phase 1: Integration Architecture & Strategy Development

Objective

Develop a structured integration approach with Epic EMR, ensuring MedRespond’s leadership and prospective clients understood the process and approved its implementation.

Actions Taken

• Conducted an analysis of Epic’s integration options, including FHIR API usage and App Orchard capabilities.
• Developed a comprehensive roadmap outlining the cost, effort, and feasibility of integration.
• Created a technical presentation demonstrating the integration process to the Academic Medical Center’s technical leaders.
• Secured buy-in from the Academic Medical Center by providing a clear, documented process where past proposals had failed due to lack of clarity.

Phase 2: Infrastructure & Security Optimization

Objective

Evaluate MedRespond’s cloud infrastructure to ensure it was appropriately sized, secure, and capable of handling future growth.

Actions Taken

• Conducted a security and cost assessment of MedRespond’s AWS infrastructure.
• Identified and eliminated inefficiencies, reducing database sizes and unnecessary resource allocation.
• Achieved a savings over $18k in operational costs per year, generating return on investment (ROI) within five months.
• Strengthened security posture to prepare for the Academic Medical Center’s compliance review.

Phase 3: Security Audit & Compliance

Objective

Address all security concerns raised by the Academic Medical Center’s IT and compliance teams, ensuring MedRespond met necessary regulatory standards.

Actions Taken

• Engaged directly with the Academic Medical Center’s security team to navigate compliance requirements.
• Provided detailed security documentation and technical responses.
• Successfully passed security audits, enabling MedRespond to proceed with the contract.
• Improved policies and procedures for MedRespond.

Phase 4: Epic FHIR Integration Engineering

Objective

Implement the Epic EMR integration using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), ensuring seamless data exchange between MedRespond and the Academic Medical Center.

Actions Taken

• Designed and deployed the FHIR integration solution.
• Identified and resolved incompatibilities between expected outcome of FHIR standard and Epic’s version of the same.
• Worked extensively with Epic’s technical team to troubleshoot and refine the integration.
• Troubleshoot the Academic Medical Center integration challenges with an FDI launch.
• Troubleshoot and resolve FHIR limitations with data sharing to achieve the desired outcome to simplify the clinical workflow.
• Ensured MedRespond’s system functioned correctly within Epic’s environment, allowing for a successful launch.

Phase 5: Overcoming Third-Party Development Roadblocks

Objective

Address and resolve challenges posed by MedRespond’s existing development team, which resisted collaboration and limited system access.

Challenges Faced

• The incumbent development team refused to grant necessary access, delaying progress.
• Every request for system changes became a roadblock, requiring workarounds.

Actions Taken

• Developed a strategy to migrate system control and access, eliminating reliance on the uncooperative development team.
• Built and tested a contingency plan to failover to a platform should the development team fail to hand over system control.
• Transitioned MedRespond’s support model to allow for internal and external management without interference from the previous team.
• Developed a patching plan to update the Linux environment and resolve security concerns.

Phase 6: System Optimization for Scalability, Security, & Stability

Objective

Enhance MedRespond’s platform to ensure it could support future growth and additional client onboarding.

Actions Taken

• Conducted a full system review to identify weaknesses in scalability, security, and stability (the three S’s).
• Developed an optimization plan with small, medium, and large-scale improvements to enhance future performance.
• Secured additional funding from MedRespond’s leadership to implement necessary enhancements.
• Eliminated single point of failure by creating documentation & training additional engineers to execute system refinements and provide ongoing support.
• Ensured the platform could scale efficiently to support multiple clients without degradation in performance.

Final Impact & Value Delivered

• Strategic Integration: Designed and successfully executed Epic FHIR integration, securing MedRespond’s ability to operate within the Academic Medical Center.
• Successful integration that meets the client and Academic Medical Center requirements.  Relationships were established such that the Academic Medical Center helped with a second integration project with another facility in Illinois.
• Cost Savings: Reduced AWS operational costs by $1,500 per month, achieving full ROI on optimization efforts in five months.
• Security & Compliance: Ensured full compliance with the Academic Medical Center’s security standards, enabling contract finalization.
• System Control: Overcame resistance from the incumbent development team, securing full control of MedRespond’s platform.
• Future-Proofing: Engineered a scalable, secure, and stable system, positioning MedRespond for sustainable growth and seamless onboarding of additional clients.

Conclusion

Through expert strategy, execution, and problem-solving, BAE enabled MedRespond to successfully integrate with Epic EHR, optimize MedRespond’s infrastructure, and scale for future growth. By addressing security, performance, and operational inefficiencies, BAE not only ensured the immediate success of the contract but also laid the foundation for MedRespond’s continued expansion in the healthcare market.

Business Automation Experts remains committed to delivering high-impact technology solutions that drive operational efficiency, cost savings, and business growth.

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