Synthetic test and development data with a leading EMR and healthcare solutions

About the client

The company develops and supports a proprietary electronic medical record (EMR) platform known for its comprehensive approach to healthcare data management. Built on an integrated database system, the software supports key aspects of patient care—including registration, scheduling, and clinical workflows—for healthcare professionals across multiple specialties. It also provides essential tools for lab technologists, pharmacists, and radiologists, and manages complex insurer billing processes.

The platform enables millions of patients to access their medical records and billing information, and is used by many of the nation’s top-ranked hospitals and medical schools as their primary electronic record system.

The situation

The organization faced significant challenges in managing test data across a complex, multi-platform database landscape. Numerous applications were tightly interconnected, supporting end-to-end business processes that depended on consistent data flows across systems. These dependencies, combined with varying data formats and the absence of critical components in some test environments, made testing difficult—especially given the sensitivity of much of the data.

Complex business rules and cross-functional data processing added further complications. Managing multiple project, development, and testing environments—with differing levels of integration and data completeness—became increasingly difficult, particularly after the transition to an Agile development model.

Existing test data tools addressed the needs of individual applications or processes but failed to support the broader ecosystem of interdependent systems.

The solution

Facing significant challenges in test data management, the organization recognized the need for a third-party solution to improve efficiency and support growing data demands. Their key objectives included faster test data provisioning, enhanced automation, and stronger privacy across multiple platforms. With many environments running simultaneously—and frequent requirements to create or update them—the team needed a robust solution to streamline operations. Previously, provisioning a new environment could take weeks, and updates for code deployments or post-test refreshes required days.

The introduction of an advanced test data management tool fundamentally transformed their operations.

The solution used Synthetic Mock Data to create protected database copies, enabling rapid environment creation, updating, and refreshing. This shift drastically reduced setup and update times while significantly improving data privacy.

Although the organization’s infrastructure was primarily SQL Server–based, they also relied on additional databases and were evaluating new technologies for upcoming services. The flexibility of the new solution supported this diverse landscape and facilitated expansion into other database platforms. This comprehensive approach allowed the technical team to manage their database ecosystem far more efficiently, enhancing operational agility and unlocking new growth opportunities.

The new solution (i.e., Syntho) also resolved challenges related to data consistency and referential integrity across systems and across successive data-generation jobs. It enabled secure data de-identification and masking while preserving the relationships necessary for accurate testing and cross-system analysis.