Navigating Data Complexity in Specialty Pharmacy Services

Situation

In healthcare, efficient data management and seamless integration are crucial for delivering high-quality patient care and maintaining operational efficiency. Yet, fragmented data environments often stand in the way of achieving these goals.

A leading national provider of complex specialty pharmacy services encountered significant data challenges stemming from its intricate business structure. With multiple independently operating business units — each relying on distinct clinical and operational applications — the organization faced barriers to unifying its data landscape.

The complexity of the provider's data environment also hindered some of its business operations, such as month-end financial reporting, by requiring time-consuming, manual workflows due to siloed data sources.

To address this, IT leadership launched a multiphase strategy aimed at modernizing its IT assets while building a unified data platform. The goal: to improve how data is accessed, consumed and shared across the enterprise and with external partners.

Recognizing the need for a focused starting point, the provider identified business intelligence and reporting as the first use case for their data strategy and modernization journey. They partnered with WWT, leveraging our deep expertise in designing and implementing data lakes and warehouses and our strategic alliance with Snowflake to lay the foundation for a more connected, data-driven enterprise. 

Solution

Our team designed a new centralized data and reporting platform based on Azure, Snowflake and Power BI in two phases:

Phase 1: The first phase focused on implementing a comprehensive data warehouse using Snowflake on Azure, creating a scalable and secure platform for managing complex healthcare data sets.

This solution laid a robust technical foundation to support the organization's evolving data needs, addressing key challenges such as data consistency and accessibility.

Phase 2: Building upon the foundation from phase one, the second phase targeted financial data pipeline modernization. We systematically migrated and rebuilt approximately 30 Power BI reports, completely reconstructing associated data pipelines. This comprehensive overhaul dramatically improved reporting efficiency and reduced manual processing bottlenecks. 

To protect sensitive healthcare data, we implemented robust Identity and Access Management (IAM) protocols with granular access controls, ensuring only authorized personnel could access specific data sets. These measures were designed to maintain HIPAA compliance and support a secure, auditable data environment that meets or exceeds the six-year retention requirement for healthcare audits. 

Outcomes

The implementation of the new data and reporting platform enabled the provider to manage data more effectively and streamline reporting processes, resulting in greater efficiency, accuracy and overall operational performance.

Key benefits included:

• Improved data accessibility and quality: The centralized data warehouse on Azure made data access and analysis easier, leading to better decision-making and insights. By merging two distinct data sets into a unified platform, the project eliminated data gaps and improved consistency across healthcare reporting systems.
• Enhanced reporting capabilities: Rebuilding approximately 30 Power BI reports transformed manual processes into automated pipelines, significantly reducing reporting time and accelerating financial and patient data analysis.
• Scalability: The Snowflake data warehouse on Azure provided a flexible, scalable foundation to support evolving data management needs as the business grows.