Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin Performs 30,000 Weekly Screenings on AWS

The COVID-19 pandemic placed significant stress on the healthcare system and accelerated the need for digital solutions to perform operational tasks, such as monitoring hospital entry or performing patient intake. To protect patients and medical providers, healthcare networks needed a way to screen for virus symptoms and schedule testing when necessary.

Health network partnership Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin (Froedtert & MCW) approached these challenges by developing a screening tool on Amazon Web Services (AWS) through the network’s innovation group, Inception Health. The solution is embedded in the Froedtert & MCW mobile app and includes features that help employees register for daily screenings, show a valid clearance passport at the hospital entrance, and receive alerts in case of potential exposure to the virus. If the tool detects positive symptoms, users can schedule fast-track testing in the app and receive recommendations for next steps. 

Froedtert & MCW built the solution with architecture as code using the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), an open-source software development framework to define cloud application resources using familiar programming languages. Using AWS CDK, Froedtert & MCW was able to continuously develop and integrate new features into the tool, which helped the network update the tool to comply with changing public health guidelines and new research. 

To manage its users’ sensitive health data, the tool uses Amazon Cognito, which lets developers add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to web and mobile apps quickly and simply. “We didn’t want to link the identity of our employees with the screening tool,” says Melek Somai, chief technology officer at Inception Health and assistant professor of medicine at MCW. “We really built an independent identity solution where privacy is designed by default using Amazon Cognito.”

By developing its screening tool on AWS, Froedtert & MCW was able to perform more than 30,000 weekly screenings with a 200 ms average response time per request. The health network deployed its application in 3 weeks and has updated its technology stack more than six times to comply with changing guidelines. The screening tool is highly reliable and available, delivering 99.999 percent uptime. “The results have been a phenomenal outcome for our frontline care providers and patients,” says Somai. “The experience of building on AWS has been a tremendous help for us to really learn and be able to understand . . . how we use digital transformation for delivering healthcare services.”