Building AI with MongoDB: How Flagler Health's AI-Powered Journey is Revolutionizing Patient Care

Angela Lee
February 7, 2024 | Updated: August 8, 2024
#genAI#Vector Search

Flagler Health is dedicated to supporting patients with chronic diseases by matching them with the right physician for the right care. Typically, patients grappling with severe pain conditions face limited options, often relying on prolonged opioid use or exploring costly and invasive surgical interventions. Unfortunately, the latter approach is not only expensive but also has a long recovery period. Flagler finds these patients and triages them to the appropriate specialist for an advanced and comprehensive evaluation.

Diagram of the current state without Flagler. The diagram shows the categories of Physical therapy, payor, substance use disorder, mental health, care management, and physician all interacting with each other with the Physician at the focal point of all the interactions.
Current state without Flagler

Flagler Health employs sophisticated AI techniques to rapidly process, synthesize, and analyze patient health records to aid physicians in treating patients with advanced pain conditions. This enables medical teams to make well-informed decisions, resulting in improved patient outcomes with an accuracy rate exceeding 90% in identifying and diagnosing patients.

As the company built out its offerings, it identified the need to perform similarity searches across patient records to match conditions. Flagler’s engineers identified the need for a vector database but found standalone systems to be inefficient. They decided to use MongoDB Atlas Vector Search. This integrated platform allows the organization to store all data in a single location with a unified interface, facilitating quick access and efficient data querying.

Diagram of what Flagler can offer. The Flagler Health Tech Platform puts the sectors of Physical Therapy, Care Management, Dietitian, Mental Health, and Substance Use Disorder into one platform that the Physician then interacts with.
What Flagler can offer

Will Hu, CTO, and Co-founder of Flagler Health, emphasizes the importance of a flexible database that can evolve with the company's growth. A relational model was deemed too rigid, leading the company to choose MongoDB's document model. This flexibility allows for easy customization of client configuration files, streamlining data editing and evolution. The managed services provided on MongoDB's developer data platform save time and offer reliability at scale throughout the development cycle.

Flagler Health collaborates with many clinics, first processing millions of electronic health record (EHR) files in Databricks and transforming PDFs into raw text. Using the MongoDB Spark Connector and Atlas Data Federation, the company seamlessly streams data from AWS S3 to MongoDB. Combined with the transformed data from Databricks, Flagler’s real-time application data in MongoDB is used to generate accurate and personalized treatment plans for its users. MongoDB Atlas Search facilitates efficient data search across Flagler Health's extensive patient records. Beyond AI applications, MongoDB serves critical functions in Flagler Health's business, including its web application and patient engagement suite, fostering seamless communication between patients and clinics.

This comprehensive application architecture, consolidated on MongoDB's developer data platform, simplifies Flagler Health's operations, enabling efficient development and increased productivity. By preventing administrative loops, the platform ensures timely access to potentially life-saving care for patients.

Looking ahead, Flagler Health aims to enhance patient experiences by developing new features, such as a digital portal offering virtual therapy and mental health services, treatment and recovery tracking, and a repository of physical therapy videos. Leveraging MongoDB’s AI Innovators program for technical support and free Atlas credits, Flagler Health is rapidly integrating new AI-backed functionalities on the MongoDB Atlas developer data platform to further aid patients in need.

Head over to our quick-start guide to get started with Atlas Vector Search today.

← Previous

MongoDB Enterprise Advanced in Google Distributed Cloud Hosted

Today, we’re excited to strengthen our "run anywhere" approach and deepen our relationship with Google Cloud by announcing that MongoDB Enterprise Advanced is now available for use within Google Distributed Cloud Hosted (GDC Hosted). "Google Cloud is happy to welcome MongoDB as a preferred partner for our Google Distributed Cloud Hosted product," said Rohan Grover, Director of Product for GDC Hosted. "MongoDB's powerful document database aligns with our data analytics focus, empowering our shared customers to unlock the full potential of their sensitive data in an air-gapped private cloud." GDC Hosted is Google Cloud’s air-gapped private cloud that does not require connectivity to Google Cloud or the public internet to manage the infrastructure, services, APIs, or tooling. GDC Hosted enables public sector organizations and regulated enterprises to address strict data residency and security requirements, while continuing to deliver innovation to their users. MongoDB Enterprise Advanced combines the power of MongoDB —– the leading NoSQL, document-oriented database that supports a variety of data structures — with an industry-leading offering catering to customers with the most advanced security and data sovereignty needs. As a flexible and scalable solution, MongoDB allows diverse datasets to be stored in a schemaless format, ensuring easy data manipulation and real-time analytics. Together, GDC Hosted and MongoDB Enterprise Advanced offer a solution that enables users to scale their operations while adhering to the strictest data governance and security standards. The bridge between GDC Hosted and MongoDB Enterprise Advanced is Kubernetes : GDC Hosted is built on Kubernetes allowing teams to self-manage MongoDB through the use of the MongoDB Enterprise Kubernetes Operator. The MongoDB Enterprise Kubernetes Operator is the only officially supported way to run Enterprise Advanced deployments of MongoDB in Kubernetes. To enable customers to manage deployments within their environment of choice (GDC Hosted in this case), the operator works in conjunction with the MongoDB self-hosted Ops Manager, which the operator can also install and manage in Kubernetes. This gives customers the ability to deploy, monitor, back up, and scale MongoDB. The Enterprise Operator drastically simplifies both the setup and day-two operations like upgrades, making it possible to run MongoDB in Kubernetes with far less Kubernetes expertise. Creation and configuration of database deployments can be managed via a Git repo, saving developers from needing the permissions or knowledge needed to work directly with Kubernetes. By leveraging the Enterprise Kubernetes Operator, users can manage their MongoDB deployments with even greater power and scale, and maximize their investment in both MongoDB and Google Cloud. GDC Hosted is built to meet high regulatory, durability, and availability requirements, which aligns with MongoDB Enterprise Advanced’s commitment to giving users the tools and support they need to have complete control over the management and security of their self-managed MongoDB environments. While MongoDB Atlas is the best way to run MongoDB on Google Cloud, MongoDB Enterprise Advanced in GDC Hosted is the best option for teams that need absolute self-managed control over data governance and compliance, while still allowing for scalability. Once you have GDC Hosted up and running, you can get started with MongoDB Enterprise Advanced through the MongoDB Enterprise Advanced listing in the GDC Hosted Marketplace. Alternatively, teams can access MongoDB Enterprise Advanced through the Google Cloud Platforms Marketplace. MongoDB customers who want to get started using Enterprise Advanced in their GDC Hosted environments will need to sign up for a MongoDB Enterprise Advanced license through MongoDB first. For more information, reach out to gcp@mongodb.com . To learn more about the Enterprise Kubernetes Operator, visit our documentation . To learn more about Enterprise Advanced, visit our product page or download the latest version .

February 6, 2024
Next →

MongoDB Database Observability: Integrating with Monitoring Tools

This post is the final in a three-part series on leveraging database observability. Welcome back to our series on Leveraging Database Observability! Our previous post showcased a real-world use case highlighting how MongoDB Atlas’s observability tools effectively tackle database performance challenges. Whether you’re a developer, DBA, or DevOps engineer, our mission is to empower you to harness the full potential of your data through our observability suite . Integrating Atlas metrics with your central enterprise observability tools can simplify your operations. By seamlessly working with popular observability tools, our approach helps teams streamline workflows and enhance visibility across systems. Integrating MongoDB Atlas with third-party monitoring tools MongoDB’s developer data platform combines all essential data services for building modern applications within a unified experience. Our purpose-built observability tools for Atlas environments offer automatic monitoring and optimization, guiding diagnostics tailored specifically for MongoDB. Additionally, we extend Atlas metrics into your existing enterprise observability stack, enabling seamless integration without replacing your current tools. This creates a consolidated, single-pane view that unifies Atlas telemetry with other tech and application metrics, ensuring comprehensive visibility into both database and full-stack performance. This integration empowers you to monitor, receive alerts, and make data-driven decisions within your existing workflows, driving greater efficiency. Below is a quick guide to modifying integration settings through the Atlas UI and the popular integrations we support: Navigate to the Project Integrations page in Atlas. Choose the organization and project you want to configure from the navigation bar. On the Project Integrations page, select the third-party services you’d like to integrate. Configure the chosen services with the required API keys and regions. Critical integrations for your observability platform With Atlas’s Datadog and Prometheus integrations, you can send critical MongoDB metrics to these platforms, empowering detailed, real-time monitoring. Through Datadog , you can track database operation counts, query efficiency, and resource usage, ideal for pinpointing bottlenecks and managing resources. Similarly, Prometheus enables you to monitor essential metrics like query times, connection rates, and memory usage, supporting flexible tracking of database health and performance. Both integrations facilitate proactive detection of issues, alert configuration for resource thresholds, and a cohesive view of Atlas data when visualized in Grafana. Atlas’s integration with PagerDuty streamlines incident management by sending metrics like performance alerts, billing anomalies, and security events directly to PagerDuty. This integration records incidents automatically, notifies teams upon alerts, and supports two-way syncing, ensuring resolved alerts in Atlas are reflected in PagerDuty. It enables efficient incident response and resource allocation to maintain system stability. With Atlas integrations for Microsoft Teams and Slack, you can route key metrics—such as query latency, disk usage, and throughput—to these channels for timely updates. Teams can use these insights for real-time performance monitoring, incident response, and collaboration. Notifications through these platforms ensure your team stays informed on database performance, storage health, and user activity changes as they occur. Use case: Centralized observability with MongoDB Atlas, Datadog, and Slack Let’s walk through a hypothetical scenario for ShopSmart, an e-commerce company that leverages MongoDB Atlas to manage its product catalog and customer data. As traffic surges, the DevOps team faces challenges in monitoring application performance and database health effectively. To tackle these challenges, the team leverages MongoDB Atlas’ integration with Datadog and Slack, creating a powerful observability ecosystem. Integrating MongoDB Atlas with Datadog: The team pushes key MongoDB Atlas metrics into Datadog, such as query performance, connection counts, and Atlas Vector Search metrics. With Datadog, they can visualize these metrics and correlate overall MongoDB performance with their other applications. Out-of-the-box monitors and dedicated dashboards allow the team to track metrics like throughput, average read/write latency, and current connections. This visibility helps pinpoint bottlenecks in real time, ensuring optimal database performance and improving overall application responsiveness. Setting up alerts in Datadog: The team configures alerts for critical metrics like high query latency and increased error rates. When thresholds are breached, Datadog instantly notifies the team. This proactive approach allows the team to address potential performance issues before they impact customers. Integrating Datadog with Slack: To ensure fast communication, alerts are sent directly to the dedicated Slack channel, “ShopSmart-Alerts.” This integration fosters seamless collaboration, enabling the team to discuss and resolve issues in real-time. With these integrations, ShopSmart’s engineering team can monitor performance quickly and address issues efficiently. The unified observability approach enhances operational efficiency, improves the customer experience, and supports ShopSmart’s competitive edge in the e-commerce industry. By leveraging MongoDB Atlas, Datadog, and Slack, the team ensures scalable performance and drives continuous innovation. Conclusion MongoDB Atlas empowers developers and organizations to achieve unparalleled observability and control over their database environments. By seamlessly integrating with central enterprise observability tools, Atlas enhances your ability to monitor performance metrics and ensures you can do so within your existing workflows. This means you can focus on building modern applications confidently, knowing you have the insights and alerts necessary to maintain optimal performance. Embrace the power of MongoDB Atlas and transform your approach to database management—because your applications can thrive when your data is observable. And that wraps up our Leveraging Database Observability series! We hope you learned something new and found value in these discussions. Sign up for MongoDB Atlas , our cloud database service, to see database observability in action. To dive deeper and expand your knowledge, check out this learning byte for more insights on the MongoDB observability suite and how it can enhance your database performance.

November 14, 2024