CastiaRx is a Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) that manages prescription drug programs for Union groups and small to mid-size employer groups. As one of the first lines of defense in healthcare, CastiaRx understands the importance of bringing innovation to the Pharmacy Benefit Management space. CastiaRx recognized an opportunity to become an industry leader by improving data availability and quality, and to provide timely and accurate information to members. CastiaRx partnered with Inspire11 to build a modern data ecosystem and identify significant savings through improved insights and access to data.

The opportunity the client was faced with

While CastiaRx is firmly focused on defining better options around pharmacy benefits and are experts in the industry, they needed additional expertise in modern data management to transform their environment. CastiaRx needed a better solution, and different support for their team.

CastiaRx’s primary challenge was surrounding data. With over 50 MS Access databases and no single source of truth, CastiaRx was limited in its ability to get to KPIs and metrics that could truly enable data-driven decision-making. The inability to address the gap in data was causing CastiaRx to miss out on savings and potential market share.

Being part of the Healthcare Ecosystem, CastiaRx required a solution that would meet the rigorous requirements to remain HIPAA compliant. CastiaRx was looking for a solution that could scale quickly from an infrastructure perspective to handle increasing data volume and accompanying data transformation and automation. A cloud-based solution was of interest to CastiaRx, but they needed guidance on navigating options.

Why they turned to Inspire11

CastiaRx was looking for a true partner – one that was able to not only understand their business but who was able to quickly deploy a solution. Inspire11 has a unique approach to partnering and demonstrated an ongoing willingness to work hard to build a strong relationships at all levels of the business.
Most importantly, Inspire11 delivered. Inspire11’s deep experience across data analytics and modern data architecture helped CastiaRx to clearly understand the options in the world of cloud computing. Partnering to implement the right solution for CastiaRx solution had a significant impact on the bottom line.

How we delivered the modern data ecosystem

Inspire11 introduced CastiaRx to the suite of solutions provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) including Amazon’s Relational Database Service (RDS) to help simplify the administrative burden typical with on-premise-based solutions. There were several driving factors for CastiaRx to select AWS, but the most critical were the ability to deploy quickly, the security of the data, the scalability of the solution set, and the cost.

Over a six-month engagement, Inspire11 was able to partner with CastiaRx to aggregate all 50 data sets into an AWS-based modern data architecture. The solution included the utilization of AWS S3 and AWS EC2 to house the data, and leveraged MySQL, Python, and Alteryx for data presentation and advanced modeling, with Tableau as the primary presentation and reporting layer. While the initiative ran over six months, Inspire11 worked to provide interim opportunities for the CastiaRx team to access staged data. Along the way, Inspire11 was able to partner with the CastiaRx team to navigate industry-specific data sources including NCPDP Data, Medispan, and Mail Specialty Pharmaceutical data. The successful partnership was supported by a small team that was focused on deeply understanding CastiaRx’s business and partnering directly with the financial analysis team to truly focus on delivering the analytics and insights most important to CastiaRx.