Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

by Mike Brown | Apr 13, 2018

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Background:

The mission of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans. Through the implementation of the HITECH Act, and the Standards & Interoperability (S&I) Framework, HHS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was establishing new standards for healthcare interoperability.

The Challenge:

With many project teams under the S&I Framework, ONC needed a centralized location for managing and maintaining project tasks, stories, and development efforts.

The Solution:

ONC chose to use the Atlassian Tool Suite, specifically JIRA / Confluence / FishEye / Crucible for development and maintenance of all initiatives under the S&I Framework. Michael Brown, founder and Principal Consultant of Ascend Integrated, supported the effort to develop, configure, and administer the Atlassian Tool Suite for over 1,000 users across HHS.

Outcome:

The successful implementation and configuration of the ONC S&I Framework Atlassian Tool Suite enabled the successful development and management of healthcare projects related to interoperability. Using the JIRA Agile Boards through JIRA Software, and configuring Confluence to capture Vision / Mission statements + requirements using templates allowed teams to focus on developing successful Health IT solutions.

OASIS

by Mike Brown | Apr 13, 2018

OASIS

Background:

OASIS is a nonprofit consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for the global information society. They are responsible for the publishing and management of multiple technical standards used in enterprises today, including those focused on interoperability.

The Challenge:

OASIS required the ability to support and track multiple active projects and chose an Atlassian Platform (JIRA + Confluence + Bitbucket) to manage standards projects and facilitate communication between OASIS members. Their Atlassian Tool Suite needed to be integrated with the existing applications and infrastructure, including their current membership management database.

The Solution:

Ascend Integrated provided Atlassian support in standing up, installing, and configuring JIRA, Confluence, and Bitbucket. We implemented and configured multiple add-ons from the Atlassian Marketplace, helped populate a knowledge base, and documented best practices. Dashboards were implemented to show issues users have entered and outstanding issues. Third party integrations completed through add-ons and custom development was implemented, allowing members to use their existing credentials to login and use the tool suite.

Outcome:

Ascend Integrated successfully implemented the Atlassian Tool Suite for OASIS. Users could now discover projects, communicate openly with one another about upcoming technical standards, and actively contribute to either documentation or code.

OpenClinica

by Mike Brown | Apr 2, 2018

Background:

OpenClinica is a Healthcare Data solutions provider, providing Cloud implementations for clients to help monitor, manage, and control their healthcare data.

The Challenge:

OpenClinica had a unique configuration/third-party SSO identity management platform configured with an older JIRA instance. OpenClinica wanted to both update their JIRA instance to 7+, but also maintain the unique configurations/custom integration using their third-party SSO. OpenClinica was also looking to migrate their instance from their servers to a custom Amazon EC2 instance.

The Solution:

Ascend Integrated developed (and later provided as an open source solution) a new integration tool for JIRA 7, which was required to be updated. Ascend Integrated also successfully upgraded their instance from 6 to the latest version of 7, maintaining custom third-party apps/add-ons and functionality. Ascend Integrated worked closely with the development/DevOps team to migrate the newly upgraded JIRA instance from their local servers to the AWS EC2 and provided detailed testing and analysis to ensure all applications were functioning.

Outcome:

The JIRA instance is in use today at OpenClinica, along with the customizations and configurations. Ascend Integrated continues to support OpenClinica as a JIRA SME and with EC2 DevOps support. JAR files developed/configured for the OpenClinica project, upon permission, were offered as a free Open Source solution downloaded and used by many users looking to integrate their JIRA instance with the SSO tool. A link can be found here: INTEGRATING JIRA AND SSO USING CAS