Global Institute Elevates Impact of Health Research through Streamlined Planning & Reporting

Outgrowing Manual Processes and Rigid Systems

As IHME’s operations scaled, they encountered mounting challenges in budgeting, planning, and reporting. To support their critical research, IHME manages a $90 million budget annually. Each research proposal requires a multi-year budget and resource allocation, resembling the complexity of managing budgets across dozens of departments in a traditional organization. Outdated legacy systems (some so old they were built on Fortran) and Excel spreadsheets hindered collaboration and efficiency, as pulling data from various sources was too manual, error-prone, and time-consuming.

“We weren’t dealing with inefficiencies or oversight—it was simply that our operations had evolved beyond what these systems were built for,” says Michael MacIntyre, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer, and a founding member of IHME. “We needed something more flexible, something that could handle the complexities of our growing data and research portfolio.”

The reliance on Excel and an outdated system designed for state agencies introduced several specific challenges:

• Data Fragmentation: Critical information, such as salary and project costs, was scattered across multiple sources, making budget creation cumbersome and nearly impossible to manage at scale.
• Manual Data Entry: Frequent manual cross-checks led to delays and errors, increasing the workload and risking inaccuracies.
• Limited Collaboration: Collaborating across units with IHME and with a broader set of partners was hampered by outdated systems and inconsistent data, creating bottlenecks and slowing down the proposal process.

“The back-and-forth for data accuracy and collaboration became a bottleneck,” MacIntyre explains. “Without a robust planning solution, our capacity to submit timely and accurate proposals for funding was limited.”

Since adopting Kepion, IHME has achieved significant improvements across key planning processes and been able to scale its backroom operations as it has grown, amplifying their ability to drive research initiatives that make a global impact.

Increased Efficiency and Proposal Capacity:

With Kepion, IHME reduced the time required for proposal preparation by one-third.. This efficiency has allowed IHME to maximize its resources, redirecting ~3000 hours of manual effort to more productive work.  More high quality proposals means more opportunities for revenue growth which goes into resourcing the research

Strengthened Global Partnerships:

The streamlined budgeting and reporting processes supported by Kepion allow IHME to create more complete proposals faster, and with more accuracy, helping secure essential funding from influential funders like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Gates Foundation. These and other global organizations, governments, and financial institutions rely on IHME’s data and insights to guide health funding priorities and policy decisions.

Enhanced Data Integrity and Accuracy:

By automating manual processes, IHME has significantly reduced manual data entry errors, ensuring accuracy and consistency in budgeting, resource allocation, and reporting. This has led to more reliable budgets and financial projections, which are crucial for informed decision-making

“With Kepion, we now have a unified, reliable source of truth that eliminates errors and streamlines our budgeting and reporting,” notes MacIntyre.

Strategic Focus on Research:

By automating administrative tasks, Kepion allows the institute’s team to focus more on intellectual and research-driven work, furthering their mission impact.

“We’ve reduced time spent on tedious administrative tasks—Kepion has allowed us to focus more on strategic work that matters: crafting compelling scientific narratives for our proposals and reports,” says Michael.