Healthy growth

Escalating Web traffic led a New England managed healthcare organization to deploy new enterprise integration software. Non-profit Harvard Pilgrim Health Care will use the solution to connect members, providers and employee partners to real-time data through the site. The system will help ensure that users have the most current information available and will help cut technology management and customer service costs, according to Harvard Pilgrim.

"Since mid-2002, the number of hits to our main Web site has been growing exponentially, and nearly everyone came to get or provide some piece of information about their status as a member, healthcare provider of employer partner," says Ralph Miller, director of corporate information management for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. "Connecting these online systems with our core reporting, claims, membership and billing applications, and ensuring that data can seamlessly flow back and forth in real time, regardless of the data volume, is essential to providing our clients with a quality experience."

The healthcare organization is using Ascential Software DataStage XE platform as the key element in its data exchange architectures. According to Miller, the system allows the healthcare organization "to flexibly connect and evolve our old and new systems using a quick-to-deploy, easy-to-maintain platform."

Harvard Pilgrim says the deployment has:

• reduced the cost of hardware and software maintenance by 75%;<>

• broadened employee access to timely data for improved decision-making; <>

• consolidated data for new Web-based reports for providers, which now take a week to develop, instead of nine months; and<>

• improved cash flow and contract negotiation by providing up-to-date information to financial management applications.

"Expanding our use of the Web to communicate with and deliver service to our members and partners helps us cut costs and potential errors while improving customer satisfaction," says Miller.

Harvard Pilgrim serves patients in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine with a network of 130 hospitals and 22,000 doctors.