Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)

The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), Arizona's Medicaid agency, partnered with iNTERFACEWARE to deploy the Iguana Integration Engine as the interoperability backbone for the state's new Crisis Bed Registry (CBR). The initiative provides real-time visibility into behavioral health facility bed availability, directly supporting Arizona's 988 crisis response network and advancing AHCCCS' mission to reduce costs while improving care access.

The Challenge: Delays in crisis placement

Locating open crisis beds has long been a pain point in Arizona's behavioral health system. Crisis call specialists often had to contact multiple facilities before finding available space, slowing patient placement, driving up costs, and straining emergency departments. These inefficiencies made it harder for individuals in crisis to receive timely, appropriate care.

The Solution: Real-time integration through Iguana

The Iguana-powered CBR solves this problem by integrating live data feeds from crisis stabilization units, psychiatric urgent care centers, and other behavioral health facilities. With Iguana normalizing and routing HL7 and API-based data, crisis responders now have instant access to bed availability, facility types, populations served, and services offered. This streamlined access eliminates guesswork, reduces delays, and supports coordinated care.

Key benefits of the Iguana-powered CBR include:

• Real-time data exchange across more than 15 participating facilities
• Integrated Medicaid and crisis response systems for improved efficiency
• Reduced costs by minimizing unnecessary emergency department use
• Faster patient placement, leading to better outcomes

Impact: A stronger statewide crisis response

The CBR connects AHCCCS, Contexture (Arizona's health information exchange), Solari Crisis & Human Services, and statewide facilities in a shared interoperability framework. With Iguana managing data movement, crisis teams now operate with accurate information in real time, ensuring rapid placement decisions.

Arizona's 988 crisis system handles an average of 24,000 calls, chats, and texts per month, dispatches more than 5,000 mobile crisis teams, and serves over 10,000 individuals in crisis stabilization units monthly. By streamlining bed placement through the new registry, AHCCCS is strengthening Arizona's ability to respond rapidly and effectively when individuals are most in need.

By serving as the interoperability backbone, Iguana ensures that these high-volume, time-sensitive workflows remain reliable, scalable, and secure. The integration engine transforms a historically fragmented process into a coordinated, real-time system that reduces costs, alleviates pressure on emergency departments, and improves outcomes for Arizonans in crisis.