Hapvida improves patient outcomes and saves lives using Oracle Cloud

Hapvida Saúde is Brazil’s largest verticalized healthcare solutions provider. With 49 hospitals, 203 clinics, and 176 diagnostic imaging and laboratory collection centers, it serves more than 15 million customers nationwide.

With plans to continue its rapid business growth through mergers and acquisitions, Hapvida was looking to modernize its data and analytics platforms to improve service levels and enhance patient care. Because its data was traditionally located in on-premises databases, specialist consultants who were not on site could not readily access test results such as X-rays and CT scans, meaning that diagnoses were frequently delayed by more than two hours.  

Additionally, the hospital’s operating goal of ensuring that patients arriving at emergency services wait no longer than 15 minutes to see a doctor was difficult to monitor without accurate and current data.   

Hapvida also needed to unify a variety of data from its large network of medical facilities on a single platform, because data coming from disparate sources was causing disagreements in the boardroom and hindering strategic decision-making. Therefore, Hapvida considered an alternative approach to using on-premises tools to improve operational and strategic reporting.

Hapvida selected Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Analytics Cloud on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) primarily because of its need to modernize with data and analytics by automating data integration and enhancing security.  

As part of its detailed selection process, the company conducted numerous benchmark studies and market surveys, and determined that Oracle Cloud technologies were the best fit to meet the company’s current and future business needs. Furthermore, Oracle demonstrated that it had the breadth and depth of technical expertise to help Hapvida build its architecture design and direct and operationalize its environment.

Hapvida significantly improved patient care and outcomes by using Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse and Oracle Analytics Cloud to deliver accurate, real-time data to physicians across the company’s network of medical facilities.

The autonomous cloud database and analytics tools enabled Hapvida staff to develop an AI model to enhance patient diagnosis and treatment that saved lives during the pandemic. Based on an analysis of chest X-rays, the model determines the probability of a coronavirus infection and provides the attending physician with a preliminary report detailing the urgency of the case, whether hospitalization is required, and in which Hapvida facilities beds are currently available.

The AI model also significantly reduced patient service times. Previously, it could take more than two hours for a doctor to receive an X-ray for evaluation, and then refer the patient to a cardiopulmonary specialist, who may not be at the hospital. Now, a highly accurate preliminary report is available in the cloud within 15 minutes, accelerating patient diagnoses.

Additionally, Hapvida used Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Analytics Cloud to boost operational decision-making and improve healthcare efficiency. For example, hospital administrators can monitor emergency room waiting times in real time and take appropriate steps to ensure patients are seen by a doctor within the service level agreement of 15 minutes. In cases where these SLAs are not being met, Hapvida uses the machine learning capabilities in Oracle Analytics Cloud to determine the underlying reasons for the delays.

Also, Hapvida enhanced the security of sensitive patient information by using Oracle Autonomous Database’s always-on encryption and Oracle Advanced Security to protect data both at rest and in transit. The company also takes advantage of Oracle Key Vault to encrypt all backed-up data, while Oracle Autonomous Database’s automated security updates have further reduced risk by eliminating the potential for human error.

The company substantially improved strategic decision-making and enhanced governance by using Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse to centralize all financial, medical service, and user data from across its healthcare network. Having a single source of trusted data eliminated situations where board members would present conflicting information compiled from separate databases, and it also ensured that patients receive the same high quality of care regardless of which medical facility they visit.

Data centralization also greatly facilitated the mergers and acquisitions process upon which Hapvida’s growth is focused, for example, simplifying the company’s recent multibillion-dollar merger with Intermédica.