Modernizing U.S. Healthcare Financial Systems: A Unified HIGLAS Data Lakehouse for National Efficiency and Accountability

Abstract

The modernization of healthcare financial management systems represents a critical transformation in addressing escalating costs and administrative inefficiencies within the United States healthcare sector. The HealthCare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS) emerges as a pivotal solution through implementation of unified data lakehouse architecture that consolidates fragmented financial platforms into cohesive, high-performance systems. Traditional healthcare financial infrastructures demonstrate significant limitations through siloed data management, delayed analytics capabilities, and complex regulatory compliance requirements that impede operational effectiveness and increase administrative burden. The proposed lakehouse architecture combines scalability advantages of data lakes with performance characteristics of traditional data warehouses, enabling comprehensive integration of financial transactions, clinical information, and operational metrics within secure, compliant environments. Implementation demonstrates substantial improvements in operational efficiency through automated data integration processes, real-time analytics capabilities, and enhanced fraud detection mechanisms that significantly reduce manual reconciliation requirements while improving accuracy and transparency. The system addresses critical challenges including data fragmentation across multiple platforms, real-time processing limitations, and evolving regulatory compliance demands through cloud-native technologies that support elastic scaling and automated quality monitoring. Enhanced fraud detection capabilities leverage machine learning algorithms and cross-system correlation to identify sophisticated schemes while comprehensive audit trails support regulatory compliance and forensic investigations. The transformation establishes foundations for industry-wide adoption of similar architectures, driving standardization efforts and collaborative initiatives that benefit the entire healthcare ecosystem through improved interoperability and reduced integration costs.