Data Streaming in Healthcare and Pharma: Use Cases and Insights from Cardinal Health

Cardinal Health is at the forefront of leveraging real-time data streaming to transform healthcare and manufacturing operations. With Apache Kafka and Confluent Cloud, Cardinal Health has modernized its legacy systems, enhanced real-time analytics, and improved efficiency across its Pharma and Med divisions. This blog delves into Cardinal Health’s journey, exploring how its event-driven architecture powers use cases like supply chain optimization, and medical device and equipment management. By integrating data streaming with platforms like Apigee, Dell Boomi and SAP, Cardinal Health sets a benchmark for IT modernization and innovation in the healthcare and pharma sectors.

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Data Streaming in Healthcare and Pharma

Many healthcare companies leverage Apache Kafka today. Use cases exist in every domain across the healthcare value chain. Most companies deploy data streaming in different business domains. Use cases often overlap.

I tried to categorize a few real-world deployments into different technical scenarios and added a few real-world examples:

• Data Streaming Use Cases and Architectures for Healthcare (including Slide Deck)
• Legacy Modernization and Hybrid Cloud (Optum / UnitedHealth Group, Centene, Bayer)
• Streaming ETL (Bayer, Babylon Health)
• Real-time Analytics (Cerner, Celmatix, CDC/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• Machine Learning and Data Science (Recursion, Humana)
• Open API and Omnichannel (Care.com, Invitae)

Apache Kafka and Flink for Stream Processing and Analytics

Apache Kafka and Apache Flink enable continuous stream processing and analytics in healthcare and pharma, providing the ability to ingest, process, and analyze massive volumes of data with low latency.

These technologies empower use cases such as real-time patient monitoring, personalized medicine, supply chain optimization, and regulatory compliance, ensuring timely insights and operational efficiency.

The State of Data Streaming in Healthcare and Pharma

Recently, I did a webinar that explores the healthcare industry’s trends and architectures for data streaming. The primary focus is the data streaming architectures and case studies.

Check out the on-demand recording:

Cardinal Health’s Data Streaming Adoption

Cardinal Health is an American multinational health care services company, and the 14th highest revenue generating company in the United States with 48,000 employees. It plays a critical role in healthcare by distributing pharmaceuticals, manufacturing medical products, and providing data solutions to healthcare facilities.

With operations in over 30 countries and a presence in 90% of U.S. hospitals, Cardinal Health’s ability to innovate is directly tied to its extensive use of data. Their journey into event-driven architecture (EDA) with data streaming using Apache Kafka and Confluent Cloud has been a transformative step in achieving real-time operational excellence and enabling scalable digital transformation.

At the data streaming conference Current 2024 in Austin, Texas, Cardinal Health presented how they “devised their enablement strategy and proceeded to build an ecosystem of information and learning support to entice leaders, architects, and developers to get on the EDA-with-Confluent-Cloud-Kafka bandwagon“.

Data streaming is a journey. Cardinal Health is an excellent success story about adopting a fully managed SaaS data streaming platform in the cloud, learning from technical and organizations challenges and best practices.

The Challenge: Modernizing Data Management

Cardinal Health faced significant challenges with outdated middleware technologies and a data-at-rest approach reliant on batch processing. These limitations led to inefficiencies, such as delayed updates on order statuses and manual interventions in customer service.

Recognizing the need for change, the company sought a modern solution to transform its data management and address the growing demand for real-time insights.

The Strategy: Adopting Event-Driven Architecture

In 2022, Cardinal Health implemented a strategy to shift from traditional data processing methods to an event-driven architecture powered by Kafka via the fully-managed Confluent Cloud SaaS solution.

The goal was not just to deploy a new tool, but to change how data was managed, shared, and leveraged across the organization. This involved:

• Establishing an event-driven architecture (EDA) team to act as consultants for business units, guiding them on how best to use Kafka and data streaming.
• Partnering with Confluent Professional Services to create a scalable and secure platform tailored to Cardinal Health’s needs.
• Integrating change management strategies to ensure teams adopted EDA successfully and moved beyond familiar legacy systems.

Building Organizational Capability

Key to Cardinal Health’s success was an intentional focus on learning and performance enablement:

1. Comprehensive Training Programs: Cardinal Health created an ecosystem of training resources, including live events, asynchronous content, and structured learning paths. These were designed to cater to diverse roles and skill levels across the organization, from business users to developers.
2. Agile Learning Development: By adopting agile methodologies, the training team rapidly delivered concise, modular content that could be easily updated and scaled.
3. Cross-Team Engagement: Events like tech talks and interactive sessions with internal and external experts fostered a culture of continuous learning and collaboration.

Results and Business Impact

In just 17 months, Cardinal Health expanded its use of Kafka from a single topic to over 58 applications across its pharmaceutical and medical product divisions. This rapid growth reflects the organization’s commitment to scaling its digital capabilities.

Key outcomes include:

• Improved Efficiency: Real-time data streaming has streamlined operations, reducing manual interventions and ensuring timely updates for both internal teams and customers.
• Scalability: The cloud-native and elastic platform allows Cardinal Health to handle peak loads seamlessly, such as during high-demand periods.
• Cost Savings: The adoption of EDA has optimized resource use, resulting in significant cost reductions.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: Real-time transparency into order statuses and operational data has improved customer satisfaction and reduced support calls.

Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Cardinal Health’s journey provides valuable insights for organizations embarking on similar transformations:

• Define a Clear Strategy: Aligning technical initiatives with business goals ensures meaningful impact and sustained investment.
• Partner with Experts: Collaborating with Confluent and other professionals accelerated Cardinal Health’s deployment and knowledge-building efforts.
• Invest in Training: A robust training and enablement ecosystem empowers teams to adopt new technologies effectively and confidently.
• Engage Stakeholders: Frequent communication and recognition programs foster a culture of adoption and innovation.

Cardinal Health’s Pharma and Med Use Cases for Data Streaming

A wide range of use cases across the Pharma and Med divisions was implemented by Cardinal Health leveraging data sharing across the event-driven architecture (EDA). Real-time data to improve operational efficiency, enhances customer experiences, and drive business agility.

The data streaming platform CHEDA (Cardinal Health Event-Driven Architecture) integrates and shares data across business units for unified insights and operations:

Cardinal Health’s event-driven architecture is central to enabling data sharing and real-time responsiveness, boosting operational efficiency, and providing a seamless customer experience while keeping the systems truly decoupled from each other. By integrating EDA across its Pharma, Med and other divisions, the organization has modernized its data infrastructure, paving the way for future innovation and growth.

The next two subsections explore the use cases and integrated platforms for Cardinal Health’s Pharma and Med divisions. Cardinal Health has seamlessly integrated Confluent with other data integration and application integration platforms, respectively API gateways, such as Apigee, Dell Boomi, Axway, and Qlik Attunity. Keep in mind that data streaming with Kafka and Flink is complementary to other integration platforms. Data streaming is its own software category and not the same as an ETL tool, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) or Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS).

Pharma: Distribution of Pharmaceuticals Supporting Retail Pharmacies, Hospitals and Specialty Care Providers

Cardinal Health’s Pharma division focuses on the distribution of pharmaceuticals, supporting retail pharmacies, hospitals, and specialty care providers with a robust supply chain network. This division also provides solutions like specialty drug management, contract handling, and real-time analytics to optimize operations and improve patient outcomes.

Use cases for data streaming with Cardinal Health Event-Driven Architecture in the pharma division include:

• Generics and Flu Vaccination Management
• Therapy and Specialty Platforms
• Contract and Chargeback Management
• E-commerce and Ordering
• Data Analytics and Reporting
• Warehouse and Logistics

Integrated platforms include JARVIS/Vantus, IBM, Rimsys RIMS, Veeva Vault QMS, Nuctrac, Palantir, PRISM, ISOTRAK, and many more.

Med: Manufacturing and Distribution of Medical Devices, Supplies and Laboratory Products for Healthcare Facilities

The Med division of Cardinal Health specializes in the manufacturing and distribution of medical devices, surgical supplies, and laboratory products for healthcare facilities. It also offers integrated solutions for inventory management, compliance, and logistics to enhance efficiency and ensure timely delivery of critical medical products.

Use cases for data streaming with Cardinal Health Event-Driven Architecture in the med division include:

• Medical Device and Equipment Management
• Regulatory and Compliance Solutions
• Ordering and Customer Systems
• Supply Chain Monitoring
• Back-office Operations

Integrated platforms include Edgepark Data Warehouse, SAP ECC, SAP MDG (Master Data Governance), SAP S/4Hana, Kodiak Canada ERP, Edgepark, Vastera Tradephere, and many more.

Cardinal Health: A Data-Driven Transformation in Healthcare and Pharma

Cardinal Health shows the transformative power of data streaming and event-driven architecture (EDA) in healthcare and pharma. By modernizing legacy systems and deploying real-time data streaming across its Pharma and Med divisions, Cardinal Health has enhanced efficiency, improved supply chain management, enabled seamless data sharing across business units and applications, and delivered better customer experiences.

With use cases ranging from Generics and Flu Vaccination Management to Therapy and Specialty Platforms, and optimizing supply chain operations, Cardinal Health’s EDA platform has become a foundation for data sharing and innovation. By connecting to other API gateways and data integration platforms such as Axway or Apigee and industry-specific applications such as Edgepark, PRISM or Nuctrac, the company has built a robust ecosystem that supports real-time responsiveness and operational efficiency across business units. Cardinal Health’s journey showcases how embracing real-time data streaming can drive significant value across critical healthcare and pharma operations.