Phamily
Modernizing Healthcare Data Infrastructure with
Secure & Scalable Solutions
Improving Phamily’s AWS Staging Environment, CI/CD, and Data Integration Workflows
2020 - San Francisco, CA
Software Development
51-200 employees
Overview
Phamily is a healthcare technology platform that empowers patients and providers with secure, accessible, and scalable medical record management. Designed to improve, organize, and enhance healthcare services, Phamily is committed to modern digital experiences in the healthcare domain.
Folio3 Data Services collaborated with Phamily to strengthen their AWS-based staging infrastructure, improve security practices, and support the ongoing integration of healthcare records with large-scale data solutions. Focusing on Dev and Staging environments, the partnership ensured improved development workflows and enhanced access control for developers.
The Challenge
Strengthening Infrastructure and Data Flow Without Disrupting Healthcare Services
The client encountered several key data-related challenges in managing their growing portfolio of projects:
Securing AWS Access: Static credentials in ECS clusters posed security risks due to exposure, misuse, or lack of rotation.
Simplifying Developer Access: Without centralized identity management, controlling user permissions was complex and inefficient.
Automating CI/CD Workflows: Limited AWS integration in GitHub Actions hindered secure, scalable automation.
Unifying Data Sources: Aggregating data from diverse sources for real-time insights was difficult without a centralized pipeline.
Integration with Hospital Systems: Syncing with InterSystems demanded secure, compliant, real-time data exchange to support hospital-grade interoperability.
The Solution: Infrastructure Enhancements and Backend Integration for Scalable Healthcare Data Management
To overcome the challenges of managing multiple environments, securing developer access, and handling sensitive healthcare data across systems, Folio3 Data Services implemented a series of strategic infrastructure and backend enhancements tailored to Phamily’s specific needs. The solution was built with scalability, security, and efficiency. Key components of the solution included:
Technologies Used
GCP Data fusion
AWS (Dev & Staging)
Aptible (Production)
Google BigQuery
GCP Data fusion
AWS (Dev & Staging)
Aptible (Production)
Google BigQuery
Results & Achievements
The partnership with Folio3 Data Services caused significant improvements for Phamily, resulting in the following outcomes:
Improved Developer Access with Centralized SSO
By implementing AWS Identity Center, Folio3 enabled a secure and seamless Single Sign-On (SSO) experience for Phamily’s development teams. This centralized access control system eliminated the need for manual credential sharing, reduced administrative overhead, and ensured that only authorized users could access sensitive environments, improving security and productivity.
Enhanced Security Through IAM Role Adoption
Previously, Phamily relied on access keys to manage permissions within their ECS clusters, which posed a significant security risk due to potential key leakage. Folio3 transitioned the infrastructure to AWS IAM roles, enabling fine-grained, temporary permissions that expire automatically. This shift eliminated long-lived access keys and brought Phamily’s security practices in line with AWS’s best-in-class recommendations.
Automated CI/CD Pipeline Integration
The deployment process was streamlined by securely integrating GitHub Actions with AWS using OpenID Connect (OIDC). This configuration allows Phamily’s CI/CD workflows to dynamically authenticate with AWS services without storing secrets in code repositories. As a result, development teams can deploy updates more quickly, with confidence in both security and version control.
Unified and Scalable Data Pipeline to BigQuery
Phamily’s complex ecosystem pulls data from multiple sources and previously lacked a consistent method of ingestion. Folio3 implemented a backend-powered data pipeline that automatically streams all incoming data into Google BigQuery. This centralized data warehouse provides scalable storage, high-performance querying, and unified access to healthcare-related datasets, enabling more reliable data operations and reporting.
Strategic Integration with InterSystems Underway
Real-time analytics improved card recognition accuracy, ensuring precise valuations for collectors.
A Scalable Digital Infrastructure for Patient-Centric Healthcare
Through its collaboration with Folio3 Data Services, Phamily significantly enhanced its development and data infrastructure's security, scalability, and efficiency. The platform is better equipped to support its mission of delivering connected, patient-centered healthcare experiences by organizing and improving backend operations and securing development environments.
Ready to optimize your project portfolio with a data-driven approach? Contact Folio3 today to schedule a free consultation!
