Case Study: Empowering Healthcare Innovation Through Cloud Data Fabric

About our client

Research centers at our client conduct extensive studies on a wide range of public health issues, aiming to address pressing health challenges and improve outcomes for communities locally, nationally, and globally. Their work drives impactful discoveries that shape health practices and policies, ultimately striving to create a healthier, more equitable world.

Challenge

The client’s legacy data infrastructure posed a major obstacle to their vision of driving innovation through AI and team science. Over 30 healthcare business units, each with unique operational and regulatory requirements, relied on outdated systems that were neither flexible nor scalable.

Compounding the issue was the need to comply with strict HIPAA regulations while enabling secure data sharing and governance across departments. Cloud solutions at the time were not equipped to meet these complex requirements, making it critical for the client to find a partner with expertise in healthcare data compliance and advanced cloud architectures.

Solution

TPI designed and implemented a cloud data fabric built on Microsoft Azure Databricks, tailored to address the client’s unique needs. This innovative architecture provided a centralized data environment with the flexibility for departments to operate independently while adhering to regulatory standards.

Key elements of the solution included:

• Seamless migration of data assets to the cloud, minimizing disruptions and reducing the need for extensive coding.
• Scalable, secure data clusters for each business unit, ensuring compliance with HIPAA and internal governance policies.
• Integration of diverse data sources such as APIs, relational databases, and file systems, enabling researchers to access and analyze data efficiently.

Additionally, TPI provided hands-on training for Databricks Notebooks, empowering researchers to create custom analytics and transformations. Our iterative approach ensured the solution evolved with the client’s needs, delivering long-term value.

Results

TPI’s tailored solution transformed the client’s data infrastructure, enabling them to achieve a new level of operational and research excellence. By creating a centralized but flexible data environment, TPI enhanced the client’s ability to collaborate across departments and execute advanced analytics securely and efficiently.

The cloud data fabric positioned the client to lead in translational research by supporting scalable, AI-driven initiatives. It also empowered their teams to make faster, data-driven decisions with confidence, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. These results reinforced the client’s role as a pioneer in healthcare research.

Working on this cloud migration project was an incredible opportunity to push the boundaries of what we could achieve with analytics at scale. We had to architect a solution that not only migrated massive amounts of data efficiently, but also optimized performance across complex environments.

Jake Gower
Practice Director, Technology Partners

Key Outcomes

• Standardized Reporting: Established a trusted, single source of truth for consistent enterprise-wide reporting.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Governed data sharing enabled secure, seamless collaboration across and beyond departments.
• Improved Analytics: Independent clusters allowed departments to tailor analytics tools to their unique needs.
• Empowered Researchers: Training on Databricks tools enabled researchers to perform advanced analytics directly.
• Operational Efficiency: Optimized query management fostered iterative improvements and more responsive decision-making.