By Matt Salerno, Senior Software Engineer
In the fast-paced realm of healthcare data, payers require not just information but timely and actionable insights. Real-time notifications serve as a bridge between real-time data processing and prompt decision-making, helping payers manage their operations more efficiently. Let’s delve deeper into the value that real-time notifications offer and how VBA is leveraging our partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to monitor network performance, data transmissions and more.
Value Proposition of Real-time Notifications for Healthcare Technology
The purpose of notifications is to alert a user to critical information and encourage them to take action in a timely manner. Most people can easily relate to this concept based on notifications that come from our email service, text messages and apps on our phone. The same holds true for notifications within a healthcare technology platform. By using notifications, VBA is able to effectively manage our network, monitor activity and share vital information with our clients in real-time.
Here are some of the benefits of real-time notifications and the AWS technology that VBA is using:
- Proactive Problem Management
VBA’s real-time notifications enable us to swiftly detect anomalies in client usage, acting as the first line of defense. This early detection means potential issues are flagged and addressed before they escalate. Amazon CloudWatch, coupled with Lambda’s serverless computing to ingest logs at scale, not only captures logs but also filters them, categorizing them by application and client. This systematic categorization ensures that irregularities are promptly identified and acted upon.
- Insights for Improvements
With our custom-developed logging utility, VBA gathers extensive data on client usage patterns. Aggregating this data allows us to gain a holistic view of system interactions and derive actionable insights. These insights help us make recommendations to help our clients optimize their operations, enhance the user experience, and streamline workflows.
- Optimized Cloud Infrastructure
Understanding our infrastructure’s performance isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. We use AWS OpenSearch to analyze aggregated telemetry information, which is similar to logs but focused on response and processing times. This information helps us gain a clear picture of system performance. With this in-depth analysis, we fine-tune our infrastructure, ensuring peak performance and reliability.
- Timely Error Alerts
Our real-time notifications are engineered to provide key VBA personnel with timely alerts, ensuring proactive issue management. Unauthorized access attempts, internal server errors, adjudication errors, and more are flagged immediately. These notifications empower VBA employees to swiftly manage and rectify issues, ensuring minimal disruption for our clients.
VBA’s Real-time Logging and Telemetry Architectural Overview
Diving into VBA’s architecture feels a lot like exploring a meticulously designed city, where every road, building, and infrastructure serves a distinct purpose. If you are the type of person who loves to dive deep into the technology behind the scenes, read on to learn how we built it.
- Our Custom Logging Utility forms the very heart of this city. It’s our go-to tool for capturing client logs and telemetry, ensuring we’re always informed about what’s happening on the streets.
- All the information from our EC2 is funneled directly to CloudWatch, much like a central hub or town square. Here, all our data congregates, waiting for the next leg of its journey.
- As data streams from CloudWatch, our serverless Lambda function steps in, acting as a diligent city planner. It categorizes and filters the logs, ensuring that only the most relevant pieces of information are passed along for further processing.
- Once sorted, the data travels to OpenSearch, our city’s central repository. Equipped with robust monitoring and alert systems, OpenSearch ensures our developers are promptly notified of any anomalies. This rapid response system is crucial for preemptively addressing potential issues.
- The specific way we map logs to ElasticSearch is also worth noting. By using a specific filter pattern, we can be sure that only the most relevant logs are captured. This process is similar to a city’s postal service, sorting through heaps of mail to ensure each letter reaches its intended recipient.
In terms of practical steps for our tech enthusiasts: For logging, it is imperative to ensure container logs are visible in CloudWatch. This real-time capture is akin to a city’s CCTV system, monitoring every nook and cranny. And when directing logs to ElasticSearch from CloudWatch, specific procedures and filtering steps are followed, ensuring only pertinent data is considered.
Overall, our architecture isn’t just about technology; it is about creating an efficient, responsive and proactive environment for VBASoftware and our valued clients.
Conclusion
For healthcare payers, the digital revolution is more than just a technological shift—it is a paradigm shift. In this evolving landscape, real-time notifications backed by a robust, well-architected system like VBA’s ensure that our clients remain agile, informed and proactive. The future beckons, and with our systems, healthcare payers are well-equipped to meet it head-on.
Contact Us
If you would like to speak with an expert to learn more about VBA’s technology stack and real-time notifications, please provide your contact information and one of our consultants will reach out to you shortly.