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Case Study

Accountable Care Organization Management System (ACO-MS)

A female doctor working on a laptop with smiling face

Client

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Industry

Healthcare

SUMMARY

The Accountable Care Organization Management System (ACO-MS) is a tool used to manage the Medicare Shared Savings Program (SSP) and the Medicare Electronic Application Request Information System (MEARiS™).

Our team redesigned ACO-MS to modernize the system to better support the case management and workflow of the ACOs and Center for Medicare (CM) users. ACO-MS is backbone system providing a foundation for managing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) high-priority Pathways to Success initiative.

RESULTS AT A GLANCE

1.8B
in savings in 2022
10.9M
beneficiaries served by SSP ACOs
91%
average overall quality score
6
consecutive years of savings and high-quality care
8K
saved per month for CMS

CHALLENGE

Reimagining the Future of an Outdated Application

The Shared Savings Program expanded substantially within its first several years of operation, growing in scope to accommodate over 500 Accountable Care Organizations. As the demands surrounding the SSP increased, the legacy application began to show signs of depreciation. The legacy architecture had been built to utilize two data repositories, which needed to be kept in sync and were expensive to maintain. ACOs struggled to generate, manage, and maintain reliable process workflows using the system.

SOLUTION

A First-of-its-Kind System Built to Last

ACO-MS is the first system of its kind to use a Docker-based, containerized microservices architecture. ACO-MS runs on a reliable Softrams-built AWS cloud platform, with open-source technologies used to streamline process workflows, user experience, and product expansion. With scalable and highly operational technologies at its core, ACO-MS allows users to conduct real-time data validations, automate program deliverables, and reduce application run cycles.

ACO Management System Dashboard screenshot
ACO-MS is the first system of its kind to use a Docker-based, containerized microservices architecture.

AWS SERVICES USED

Lambda, Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Batch, and Route53 are used to manage ACO-MS’ scalable, serverless environment.
AWS Elasticsearch, AWS Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), AWS CloudWatch, and Amazon CloudFront are implemented to meet data demands.
API Gateway, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Key Management Service (KMS), and Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles maintain a reliable and secure environment.
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Amazon EventBridge, and Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) to manage the microservices ecosystem.

TESTIMONIALS

I really like this new enhancement to filter SNF affiliates, especially for star ratings, it’s helpful.

ACO User

ACOMS is like Amazon, user friendly and far better than 3 years ago.

ACO User

I've really liked the ACO-MS system in general. It's really intuitive and it's clean, and the menu store you can get in and figure things out. So, I'm happy to have it added here and sort of reducing our step to somewhere else and having to do multiple adds.”

ACO User

This system is a significant improvement over the old way of entering this data. Nice work!

ACO User

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