Engineering at All Stages of the Health IT Lifecycle 

This Engineering Week, LCG recognizes the contributions engineering has made to Health IT and biomedical research support.

LCG helps accelerate digital government strategy and programs so that agencies and their critical systems can stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly shifting digital landscape. From initial project conception to finished product, the process of development would be nothing without the expertise that many engineers employ. Innovation is crafted by decisions that shape the pathway from idea to reality. Through the work of LCG’s many engineers, we enable more efficient, productive, and speedier customer transformations. 

For instance, in the design and development of Health IT solutions, engineers at LCG are there at every phase from design and development, to creating interfaces, developing algorithms, and designing databases. Adding on top the existing complexity, the engineering team then integrates systems to be sure that all components are working together seamlessly. 

With many Health IT products outputting large amounts of data, there is also a need for analysis and insight. Through the phases of development, engineers working alongside healthcare professionals can ensure that designs of databases, algorithms, and management of key records allow for robust data analysis. This enables healthcare professionals to make informed decisions about diagnosis, treatment, and care management.

As with any sensitive data, cybersecurity is of utmost importance. All products must be secured to protect patient data from theft in any form. Cybersecurity engineers are responsible for safeguarding vulnerable data and to increase the security profile of the organization. 

Finally, to ensure regulatory compliance and that the solution created in development is viable, engineers must perform rigorous testing, including designing and executing test plans, system verification and validation, and conducting risk assessments.  

At every step, engineers work closely with healthcare professionals following the Federal government’s standards.  By working together to design, develop, and test, engineers are involved at each stage so solutions are guaranteed safe, effective, and fulfill the ever-changing needs of Health IT and biomedical research. With the advent of advanced machine learning and generative artificial intelligence models LCG is testing and incorporating emerging technologies to modernize, integrate, and create whatever our clients need to embrace innovation’s future.

Srinivas Kothuri is Vice President, Innovation and Digital Engineering Services at LCG.

Modernizing Legacy Data: AudBase

Building customer-focused solutions aren’t just buzz words at successful companies – it’s part of the corporate DNA. It starts at the top with strong leadership vision and it multiplies across departments with employees breaking down silos to serve the company and customer missions.

A recent example comes from our client, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) – one of 27 Institutes and Centers at NIH – where Ravi Kosuri of LCG recently received the Director’s Award for his work on NIDCD’s Audiology project.

NIDCD’s Audiology project was a small part of a very large project the LCG team was working on in 2022.

The larger project had an extensive project management plan with timelines, tasks, and deliverables identified upfront with the customer. An immediate need was identified to provide NIDCD Audiology staff with a way to read and process data from the AudBase system.

The team’s approach was quickly shifted to progressive elaboration by LCG’s project manager, Ashley Stanton. Progressive elaboration is an iterative Agile project management technique that allows for a project plan to evolve as information is gathered. This approach, as well as its short turnaround time, made the AudBase project very unusual from the start.

Even when the pressure was on to rapidly turn the new project, time had to be spent in the early days determining the foundational nature of the challenge. Since the service delivery team was deeply embedded in the project, they worked with customer stakeholders to understand their needs. Multiple technical options and their impact were researched with cost and risk analyses so the team could recommend the path forward. Ravi worked collaboratively with the developer, third-party vendors, and government employees to implement a cloud-based database solution that met NIDCD’s needs on time and under budget.

By conceptualizing the best solution and accomplishing the client’s goals and objectives on the tight timeline, Ravi’s team successfully delivered a:

  • Web service interface (Azure-hosted API interface with AudBase)
  • Data transformation engine (JSON parser)
  • Cloud-based relational database
  • Accessible interface for third-party applications (such as RedCap, QlikSense, or Power BI)

Not only did Ravi receive the NIH Director’s award but the entire LCG team was recognized by the Center for Information Technology (CIT) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as one of the pioneers in using the NIH Azure Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative.

The end result is a new concept and technique for conducting and supporting biomedical and behavioral research and research training in the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech, and language.

Ravi Kosuri is LCG’s principal architect supporting the life science advancements in biomedical research at NIDCD.

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