Kanda supports Trapelo on the journey to AWS Cloud ensuring HIPAA-Compliance

Almost everyone at Trapelo Health has a story about a loved one or friend who has been touched by cancer. Trapelo’s mission is to address the challenges that result from rapid changes in the science, technology and business of next-generation cancer care.Trapelo (now a part of NeoGenomics) is the only real-time precision medicine platform that enables everyone involved in cancer care to align their decision making and reimbursement policies with the most current clinical evidence in molecular oncology. The platform features configurable practice, lab and payor modules that facilitate real-time, evidence-based decision support that lets oncologists know what to tests to order for which patients and from which labs, and then helps them interpret the results for more informed treatment decisions – all of this in the context of the patient’s insurance policies. This optimizes efficiency while giving oncologists confidence they’ve ordered the most relevant tests based on their patient’s disease and clinical stage.

The Challenge

Trapelo is the result of nearly a decade of collaboration by an expert team of scientists, clinicians and information technologists. Their ongoing work designing and curating a knowledgebase of all genes, targeted agents and published evidence helps oncologists identify up front precisely what should be tested and for which patients. The platform allows oncologists to order such tests from their preferred labs, and then synthesizes the results into standardized, actionable reports. Treatment options are ranked according to levels of evidence, empowering oncologists to make faster, more informed choices with confidence. As customer demand for Trapelo services grew along with the complexity and volume of data points, the company has decided to migrate to AWS due to the limitations in hardware capacity, escalating operational costs and challenges of scaling on demand of their existing dedicated private cloud infrastructure. Trapelo management was looking to optimize CAPEX while enhancing scalability on demand and maintaining HIPAA-compliance and security of the data.

The Solution

Trapelo selected Kanda for a multi-year partnership to develop the initial solution features, continue ongoing feature development, perform defect management, perform quality assurance, and provide ongoing technical support. When evaluating a public cloud solution, Trapelo chose Amazon Web Services (AWS) as the public hosting environment because of the following features:

• Elastic compute resources
• Provisioning control
• Comprehensive security built-in
• Ease of administration
• HIPAA compliance ready
• Governance rules
• Source code control

The Kanda team met the challenge and quickly assembled to provide the platform development, AWS set-up and management of the environment. To ensure compliance with HIPAA security protocols, the AWS cloud was on one local site, removing any issues with multi-tenancy. Data was fully encrypted at rest, in flight and full auditing was always on for users (when logging in and out) or opening, viewing or changing code. Kanda delivered multiple AWS environments and built a release pipeline including development, training, quality assurance, and a support team. The solution is able to efficiently process clinical orders, conduct analysis, and produce reports to guide the care of its patents. Trapelo is able to provide a training environment for internal staff as well as new oncologists, practices, labs, and payers. [quote align="center" author-name="Russell Ingersoll, PhD" author-job="Chief Product Officer, Trapelo" text="Our clients are seeking real-time analysis of complex clinical data to make well-informed decisions for their patients. A necessary component is an elastic, secure high performing and HIPAA compliant Infrastructure from AWS. Our key partnership with Kanda Software is where the magic happens, they are uniquely staffed with the technical, product management and delivery resources to keep our environment up and running 24×7"]

Results

The teams at Trapelo and Kanda released a production platform based on AWS services. The new solution is scalable and elastic enough to meet ever-changing workloads and project requirements. The move to an AWS has enabled Trapelo to do what it does best – provide real-time, evidence-based information and full transparency to make patient-based decisions for late-stage cancer patients.