The Craneware Group enhances healthcare insights with Oracle Database@Azure, optimizing data for better operational performance

The Craneware Group’s acquisition of a provider of complementary solutions created an opportunity to unify data across multiple clouds and enhance their ability to deliver actionable insights and greater value to customers.

They centralized their data using Oracle Database@Azure, Azure SQL Database, and Azure Cosmos DB, creating a unified platform for better data integration and insights.

The Craneware Group optimized licensing costs, improved data analysis, and enhanced decision-making with a centralized data platform, supporting healthcare providers in delivering better patient care.

The Craneware Group transforms healthcare with data-driven insights

The Craneware Group, a global healthcare technology company, is dedicated to improving financial and operational performance for healthcare providers. Founded in 1999, the company has grown to serve over 12,000 hospitals, clinics, and affiliated retail pharmacies, impacting nearly 200 million unique patient encounters every year.

The Craneware Group has an unwavering commitment to their mission of improving financial and operational performance so healthcare providers can focus on delivering better care for patients. Founded to help automate the process of turning care into claims through chargemaster technology, they’ve expanded to provide a cloud-based advanced analytics, automation, and compliance platform called Trisus®. This dedication to innovation and their impact on the success of healthcare providers make The Craneware Group a trusted industry partner.

"It's about improving performance in all areas of the business of healthcare so hospitals can take better care of their patients. Everyone deserves the best healthcare possible, and we're part of that at The Craneware Group," said Maggie Tubassum, Vice President Trisus Platform at The Craneware Group.

Tackling data disparity

A strategic acquisition by The Craneware Group introduced new applications and data sets to further enhance the company’s financial and operational solution offerings. Like many of their customers, The Craneware Group faced the challenge of unifying disparate data from new sources into their Trisus platforms, as the newly acquired assets were developed on Oracle.

The function of the Trisus platform is to centralize value cycle data from care settings—including hospital and post-discharge activities—to create a unified view of the patient journey. This level of data integration is a core strength and hallmark of the company’s expertise, enabling healthcare providers to bolster revenue integrity, perform cost and margin analyses, and meet compliance requirements, all while improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs. With one of the largest databases of US healthcare data outside the insurance market, the company needed a solution to seamlessly incorporate the newly acquired data on Oracle into Trisus.

“Oracle Database@Azure has been a strategic asset for us. It allows us to leverage the best of both worlds—Oracle's robust database services and Azure's high-performance cloud infrastructure. This integration makes it easier for us to uncover actionable insights from our data.”

Abhilesh Gandhi, Chief Technology Officer, The Craneware Group

Unifying healthcare data

To address this challenge, The Craneware Group leveraged Oracle Database@Azure to centralize their data, particularly after acquiring a company with a significant Oracle-based 340B data system. Migrating allowed them to continue leveraging the processing power of Oracle, while also reducing latency and improving data integration across other products and services they were using. Additionally, they utilized Azure SQL Database and Azure Cosmos DB to store and manage various types of healthcare data, providing a robust and scalable solution. Centralizing their data allows them to get a holistic look at their customer’s most pressing concern: the end-to-end patient journey, from a hospital stay and all that entails, to the outpatient pharmacy to fill prescriptions. This level of detail from The Craneware Group empowers healthcare leaders to optimize care and better serve their communities. To gain even deeper insights, The Craneware Group has started using machine learning for predictive analytics, leveraging the models available through Azure OpenAI Service.

"Oracle Database@Azure has been a strategic asset for us. It allows us to leverage the best of both worlds—Oracle's robust database services and Azure's high-performance cloud infrastructure. This integration makes it easier for us to uncover actionable insights from our data," said Abhilesh Gandhi, Chief Technology Officer at The Craneware Group.

“It's about improving performance in all areas of the business of healthcare so hospitals can take better care of their patients. Everyone deserves the best healthcare possible, and we're part of that at The Craneware Group.”

Maggie Tubassum, Vice President Trisus Platform, The Craneware Group

Gaining deeper insights for better healthcare

As deployment continues to ramp up, The Craneware Group has already seen benefits of this project, including reduced licensing costs and improved healthcare data analytics. This is just the beginning. They plan to enhance their Azure infrastructure with managed solutions and AI for deeper healthcare insights. Utilizing Microsoft Fabric as a mesh to integrate Oracle, SQL, and Cosmos DB, they aim to create a comprehensive data view to improve data analysis and enable them to build out customer large language models and open up more pathways to leverage AI. Moving their VMware virtual machines to Azure VMware Solution will free them from managing infrastructure as a service. By gaining deeper insights into the patient’s journey, they aim to be a trusted partner to healthcare organizations across the US, transforming the business of healthcare.

Discover more about The Craneware Group on LinkedIn and X/Twitter.