Redox elevates healthcare data management with Google Cloud integration

Empowering patient care through seamless data integration

As the healthcare industry continues to embrace digitization, the need for better, more cost-effective patient care is more urgent than ever. Doctors and healthcare providers must ensure that crucial medical data is exchanged seamlessly across an array of systems to enhance treatment outcomes and operational efficiency. The potential benefits of AI and advanced analytics to improve patient care has further amplified this need.

Against this backdrop, Redox, a leading provider of healthcare data interoperability solutions, faced the challenge of adapting to these emerging trends to maintain their competitive edge. 

Business challenge

Navigating a complex multicloud environment

Redox has successfully leveraged AWS for years, tailoring infrastructure and hiring practices around AWS-specific skill sets. As the healthcare industry embraced AI-driven analytics, however, delivering superior service to doctors and patients required expansion into Google Cloud to take advantage of Google Cloud’s Healthcare Data Engine.

“In the market, we encountered a significant emphasis on applying analytics and AI to healthcare data, which the big cloud hyperscalers, including Google Cloud, were developing,” recalls Clark Downum, CTO at Redox. “To truly partner with Google Cloud and provide a smooth customer experience, we needed to have a version of our product running on Google Cloud.”

Shifting from AWS presented operational challenges 

This shift presented several operational challenges. The Redox team, well-versed in AWS, found themselves needing to deploy and run their platform on a cloud provider that they had little experience with. This required not only building and deploying a complex system on Google Cloud but also managing a multicloud environment, which brought its own set of risks.

“We weren’t just thinking about the initial setup but also about the long-term maintenance and the need to understand what elements could be genericized and what should remain cloud-specific,” says Amy Rich, Senior Director of DevOps at Redox. “AWS and Google Cloud, while similar in some ways, have very different characteristics, and we needed expert guidance to navigate those differences.”

Needing to maintain high standards of trust

Equally critical was maintaining the high standards of security and compliance that Redox prides itself on, such as SOC 2 and HITRUST certification, across both AWS and Google Cloud.

“We wanted, at a minimum, security and operational parity between the two platforms,” Downum explains. “The goal was to start at a high level of security on Google Cloud, and quickly achieve HITRUST certification.” 

Solution

Transitioning to a multicloud strategy and integration

The transition to a multicloud environment wasn’t just a technical hurdle but a strategic business decision aimed at supporting Redox’s long-term growth. To continue delivering innovative, secure, and compliant solutions to a diverse health customer base, they needed a Google Cloud integration partner who could deliver three key outcomes:

• A Google Cloud Security-enriched Cloud Foundation 
• A Google Cloud core infrastructure buildout 
• Application enhancements for leveraging cloud-agnostic authentication and single sign-on (SSO) integration

Choosing SADA, An Insight company was significantly influenced by the ability of the multiple-time Google Cloud Partner of the Year to execute rapidly and manage these complexities.

“SADA was recommended by Google Cloud and quickly proved to be the right choice,” says Downum. “Their team brought a wealth of experience, not just in Google Cloud, but also in AWS, which was crucial for us as we embarked on this multicloud journey.”

Developing cloud-agnostic infrastructure 

A major aspect of the collaboration involved restructuring Redox’s backend Terraform infrastructure-as-code (IAC) to support deployments across multiple clouds. SADA played a pivotal role in helping Redox design a cloud-agnostic infrastructure, ensuring that the configurations were sufficiently generalized. 

SADA helped Redox with specific Terraform code that related to deploying CloudSQL, GKE clusters, and creating Terraform code to manage Confluent Cloud. They also worked with Redox’s Foundation and Security teams on understanding the Identity and Access Management (IAM) functionality among clouds.

“We needed people who could act as translators from cloud to cloud,” explains Rich. “SADA helped us navigate the differences in IAM, networking, and project structure between AWS and Google Cloud, ensuring that our deployments were consistent and secure.”

Streamlining deployment and project management

As part of the migration and integration process, Redox was planning to move from Jenkins to Atlantis, a more modern open-source tool for managing infrastructure-as-code deployments. A key advantage of Atlantis was that it sped up Redox and SADA engineers’ ability to deploy and iterate code.

“One of the key contributions from SADA was helping us establish patterns and templates that we could reuse across clouds,” says Rich. “Their guidance was instrumental in setting up our infrastructure deployment processes, which are now more streamlined and easier to manage.”

SADA’s project managers also maintained clear communication throughout the project, providing timely updates and ensuring that all stakeholders were aligned. This enabled Redox to navigate the complexities of their multicloud environment with confidence.

“SADA’s project management was outstanding,” adds Downum. “The clarity and transparency they provided allowed us to stay informed and make sound decisions quickly, which was critical for the success of this project.”

Impact

Preventing client churn and securing major contracts

As a result of working with SADA, Redox was able to secure a significant client that was at risk of leaving and sign the most lucrative contract in the company’s history. The collaboration not only safeguarded their existing client relationships but also facilitated the acquisition of major new contracts.

“Our second most valuable customer was at risk of churning, but with SADA’s support, we prevented that,” says Downum. “The engagement with SADA also enabled us to deliver the results clients expected, which led us to signing the largest deal in company history.”

Enhancing customer satisfaction and accelerating product development

The integration of Google Cloud’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) data store, part of Google Cloud’s unique Healthcare API offering, allowed Redox to offer new capabilities that accelerated their customers’ development processes. This, in turn, led to speedy realization of value from the Redox platform and bolstered customer satisfaction.

“Our customers can now test and develop faster, leading to higher satisfaction and earlier value realization from our platform,” adds Downum.

Strengthening security posture and compliance 

Redox leveraged the greenfield nature of their Google Cloud infrastructure to implement critical security measures, such as egress filtering, which was easier to achieve without the risk of disrupting live customers. This has substantially reduced their attack surface and enhanced their compliance posture, particularly for HITRUST certification.

“The Google Cloud infrastructure allowed us to implement egress filtering, which has been crucial in protecting against data exfiltration, especially with healthcare data,” explains Rich.

Expanding market opportunities with Google Cloud Marketplace

In addition to their new Google Cloud infrastructure, Redox’s ability to now transact on the Google Cloud Marketplace has opened new doors for Redox, enabling them to engage with clients who previously weren’t exposed to their services. Also, being able to draw down clients’ existing Google Cloud commitments has made it easier to close deals and expand their customer base.

“Being on Google Cloud Marketplace is a game changer for us,” says Downum. “It’s a radically different conversation when we can offer our services under a client’s existing Google Cloud budget.”

Ultimately, by leveraging SADA’s expertise, Redox was able to achieve a seamless multicloud infrastructure, streamline their deployment processes, and set the foundation for future scalability and innovation across both AWS and Google Cloud, Overall, Redox was able to:

• Prevent client churn and secure the largest deal in company history
• Implement enhanced security measures on Google Cloud, reducing their attack surface and bolstering compliance
• Accelerate product development and improve customer satisfaction through the integration of Google Cloud’s FHIR data store
• Expand market opportunities by listing on Google Cloud Marketplace, making it easier to engage with clients and close deals