When Connecticut wanted a pc system for its deliberate well being data community, it got here up with a novel resolution.
As an alternative of hiring consultants, the state tapped the College of Connecticut to develop the software program for the community referred to as Connie. In 2017, the varsity created a brand new unit known as UConn Analytics and Data Administration Options—UConn AIMS for brief—to do the work.
Offering the pc structure for Connie, an digital system permitting well being care professionals and entities like hospitals and labs to entry affected person data statewide, was alleged to be just the start for UConn AIMS, director Alan Fontes mentioned.
The Core Analytic Knowledge System — CDAS for brief — created for Connie had many different makes use of past well being care, Fontes mentioned.
“It was bringing these assets into the state as state property. They’d have had it as an asset as an alternative of going out and hiring lots of consultants.”
— Alan Fontes, former UConn AIMS director
Immediately, UConn AIMS is out of enterprise, 20 persons are out of jobs and the system developed for Connie at the price of about $20 million has been discarded and dismantled.
Across the time of Connie’s launch in Could 2021, the Workplace of Well being Technique (OHS), which was in control of standing up the community, ended the funding and discarded the custom-made system UConn AIMS had spent 4 years growing. As a substitute, the company bought an current system developed for Maryland’s well being data community, whose annual value will method $1 million subsequent yr, Connie spokeswoman Jami Ouellette mentioned.
Why UConn AIMS’ system was dumped and dismantled is unclear. Connie, an impartial nonprofit, performed no function within the resolution, Ouellette mentioned in an e mail.
“The UConn AIMS contract was funded by OHS on to UConn AIMS,” she mentioned. “Connie has by no means had a contract with UConn AIMS, and subsequently, didn’t have any authority relating to UConn AIMS contract selections.”
Former OHS Government Director Vicki Veltri, who left the company July 1, would solely say that UConn AIMS’ federal funding ran out on the finish of 2020. In an interview earlier this yr, Veltri, who had excessive reward for the CDAS system in an August 2020 UConn Immediately article, mentioned she consulted with UConn and the state Division of Social Companies (DSS), and “there was a mixed resolution to go in one other path.”
“They mainly threw it away”
However Stephanie Reitz, UConn spokeswoman and supervisor of media relations, mentioned the varsity, which defends the system, solely agreed to withdraw UConn AIMS’ system “when it turned evident that the funding would expire with out different sources accessible to proceed supporting it.”
UConn is disenchanted that Connie doesn’t use the progressive system its unit spent years and hundreds of thousands of {dollars} growing, Reitz mentioned.
“UConn needs the work of AIMS would have led to a special final result,” she mentioned. “The college entered into the endeavor with OHS to develop a novel knowledge analytics resolution higher than merchandise provided by personal contractors and that would add worth to the state and past. We imagine that [UConn AIMS’] product did precisely that.”
The discarding of their system left three UConn AIMS staff members, all of whom misplaced their jobs, so indignant and pissed off that they filed a grievance late final yr with the State Auditors of Public Accounts asking it to analyze. The auditors, per their coverage of neither confirming nor denying investigations, declined remark.
“They mainly threw it away,” former UConn AIMS Deputy Director Christopher Gracia instructed C-HIT. “It hurts as a result of we put lots of money and time into it for the state. It hurts that the residents, the residents of the state, aren’t going to expertise what they may have had.”
Evaluation blindsides UConn AIMS
The trouble to create a Connecticut well being data community has a protracted and checkered historical past. Three makes an attempt over almost a decade resulted in costly failures. In 2017, the state determined to strive once more.
Connie, the newest try, was to have two functions: allow medical personnel statewide to entry a affected person’s full medical historical past no matter the place the information are stored and evaluation to enhance care and scale back prices.
The legislature assigned the job of standing up Connie to OHS, which employed a number of consultants, together with UConn AIMS. OHS in the end paid the unit about $20 million, most of it federal funds, to develop Connie’s laptop structure and analytics.
In the summertime of 2020, with the system able to go and Connie’s launch approaching, OHS, in settlement with the Division of Social Companies, determined to conduct an evaluation. It assigned the duty to a different marketing consultant on the mission, Michigan-based Velatura Companies LLC.
In October 2020, a month earlier than Connie was scheduled to launch, Velatura issued a report concluding UConn AIMS’ system was flawed and recommending or not it’s deserted in favor of 1 from an out of doors contractor. Velatura didn’t suggest an out of doors vendor.
The evaluation blindsided Fontes and Gracia. Fontes contested the findings and accused Velatura of unhealthy religion, saying the agency didn’t make it clear till late within the course of that it was doing an evaluation as an alternative of searching for an indication. Velatura additionally by no means supplied the parameters on which the system can be judged, they mentioned.
Fontes mentioned he was indignant that the evaluation slammed UConn AIMS for utilizing simulated as an alternative of actual knowledge to check its system when OHS was supposed to offer the true knowledge however by no means did.
As well as, Fontes and Gracia accused Velatura of reneging on a promise to permit UConn AIMS to assessment the evaluation and reply earlier than it was designated closing. Lisa Moon, who led Velatura’s evaluation staff, initially instructed Fontes in emails that the report was closing and “not modifiable.”
However below strain from UConn AIMS, Allan Hackney, who was OHS well being data expertise officer on the time, returned the report back to draft.
Hackney, who was in control of the Connie mission beginning in 2017, resigned on the finish of 2020. He didn’t reply to voicemails left on his cellphone or a message despatched to his LinkedIn account searching for remark.
Factual errors, lack of transparency, omission of key components
UConn’s administration backed Fontes and his staff. Radenka Maric, who on the time was UConn’s vp for analysis, innovation and entrepreneurship, despatched Veltri and DSS Commissioner Deidre Gifford a seven-page letter dated Nov. 9, 2020, detailing shortcomings in Velatura’s evaluation. (Learn Maric’s letter under.)
These shortcomings included “factual errors, misrepresentation of scope and goal, omission of key components obligatory for analysis, and lack of transparency and engagement with key constituents in the course of the analysis and assessment course of,” wrote Maric, who has since grow to be UConn’s interim president.
“UConn feels very stringently that severe flaws on this doc forestall its consideration as a part of a essential evaluation of [the system’s] performance at the moment.”
— Radenka Maric, UConn interim president
She went on to notice that “good religion” and “clear aims and analysis standards … are missing within the present draft report.”
Reached through e mail, Velatura didn’t reply to questions on UConn’s criticisms of its evaluation, as an alternative sending a common four-sentence assertion defending its work on the Connie mission.
“As a marketing consultant to the state of Connecticut as they had been standing up Connie, Velatura accomplished our contract deliverables to the complete satisfaction of each events,” firm spokeswoman Emily Mata mentioned within the assertion.
Fontes and Gracia mentioned they heard nothing from OHS within the weeks following UConn’s letter.
“Nobody communicated with me in any respect,” Fontes mentioned.
Then in late December, OHS despatched UConn AIMS an order to cease working on the finish of the yr, saying its federal funding was working out.
Veltri mentioned Velatura’s evaluation performed no function within the funding cutoff. She mentioned OHS needed to cease offering cash as a result of it was not sure whether or not a brand new request for federal funds can be permitted.
In the meantime, the introduced November 2020 launch of Connie was pushed ahead to spring 2021. Nevertheless, Fontes nonetheless had heard nothing from Connie or OHS in regards to the evaluation or whether or not UConn AIMS’ structure can be used.
Veltri acknowledges ‘issues’ about evaluation, cabinets it
UConn AIMS managed to battle alongside till its funding was restored in early 2021, Fontes mentioned.
In mid-March 2021, Veltri wrote UConn a letter formally responding to UConn’s criticisms of the evaluation that was despatched greater than 4 months earlier than. Vetri reiterated that her workplace had not reviewed the report earlier than it was circulated however mentioned it had now carried out so.
“As , we had issues in regards to the draft report. Due to these issues, the report was not finalized or printed, nor will or not it’s.”
— excerpt from Vicki Veltri letter of March 16, 2021
In a Could interview with C-HIT, nonetheless, Veltri denied that her resolution constituted a withdrawal of the evaluation. When pressed whether or not she agreed with the evaluation’s conclusions, she mentioned, “I stand by the work product.”
UConn, nonetheless, took Veltri’s letter as acknowledgment that “the report’s flaws had been important to the purpose of invalidating the draft [assessment] in its entirety,” college spokeswoman Reitz mentioned.
UConn AIMS terminated, structure discarded
Whilst Connie lastly launched in Could 2021, UConn AIMS heard little or nothing from OHS in regards to the standing of their system, Fontes mentioned. With little to do and its employees shrinking, the workplace targeted on fine-tuning what it had constructed, Fontes mentioned.
“We had been in limbo,” Gracia mentioned.
In July 2021, OHS lowered the increase, informing Fontes that it could not use UConn AIMS’ system and terminating its contract. No cause was given, however Fontes mentioned he believes it was due to Velatura’s evaluation.
“That report was what they wished to make use of to close us down,” he mentioned. He nonetheless doesn’t absolutely perceive why.
Within the meantime, OHS bought an current system from CRISP, Maryland’s well being data community, Connie spokeswoman Ouellette mentioned. The annual value is near $1 million.
UConn AIMS’ value per yr would have been comparable, however Fontes and Gracia say their system, which had been particularly tailor-made to Connecticut’s wants, would have been higher.
UConn AIMS limped alongside for a number of months, making an attempt to salvage items of what it had constructed and market them to different state companies, however nothing got here of it, Fontes mentioned. On the finish of September final yr, Fontes let his final staff go.
Fontes stayed at UConn till he retired from the state in April. Gracia now works within the personal sector.
“It felt unhealthy at first,” Gracia mentioned of UConn AIMS’ demise. “However by the tip, we had been all glad to be out of the state. It’s like a aid. It was simply so chaotic and unorganized. They didn’t have the fitting individuals managing the hassle. They didn’t have the fitting individuals managing the distributors. They didn’t have the fitting individuals managing us. They simply didn’t have the fitting individuals.”
This report was initially printed by August 9, 2022, by The Connecticut Well being Investigative Staff.
