Inergex Helps HealthNow New York Inc. Better Meet the Demands of Its Members

Client: HealthNow New York
Client Location: United States
Client Industry: Healthcare

Client Profile
HealthNow New York Inc. does business as BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, BlueShield of Northeastern New York, and HealthNow in the Central New York region. It also operates a Medicare claims processing division. HealthNow traces its roots to 1936, when it pioneered affordable healthcare coverage for the working men and women of Western New York. HealthNow has annual revenues exceeding $2 billion.

Business Situation & Challenge
The demands on the health care industry are ever increasing. Health care members are requiring more interactive, customizable Web-based tools to enable them to manage their personal health care records. HealthNow realized it too needed to offer more user-friendly, robust tools to provide members what they expected. The challenge was to build a robust Webbased tool to provide members with their personal health care information but at the same time adhere to HIPAA and other health care regulations and laws. The project was also viewed as a key competitive advantage for HealthNow; therefore, the quality, functionality, and comprehensiveness of the tool and all its deliverables were critical.

The main project objective was to build an infrastructure to allow the HealthNow CareAdvance solution to be deployed. The infrastructure would support the development, test, and production environments for the project. In addition, the environment would have to be built by highly seasoned IT experts due to the project’s complexity. The server environment alone consisted of 30 new servers that would need to be configured to support the project. Due to the critical nature of the project, several redundant systems had to be implemented as well.

Solution
Inergex was selected for the project because the company already had an existing relationship with HealthNow and because it had done highly complex work in other IT areas— Inergex proved it could handle such mission-critical projects. Inergex worked with the HealthNow team and attended training to ensure team members were fully knowledgeable of all aspects of the build and the support of such an environment. VMware was utilized for several of the development and test systems to save costs on the hardware needed for the project. The project was part of an initiative called “Crossroads” at HealthNow, which is part of transformational change in the organization.

“Staying on top and ahead of the competition is no easy task. Members are key drivers of the competitive spirit among health care organizations. They require specific tools and services to better manage their own health and health care records. Having the tools and systems in place is only one piece of the puzzle.

It’s also important to ensure that these systems work as the members expect them to and that they offer the promised benefits to members. When the solution is fully deployed at the end of 2007, I am confident we will be able to give our members what they need as well as put HealthNow ahead of the competition,” said Paul Stoddard, Vice President/CIO at HealthNow New York Inc.

Project Results & Benefits
The solution provided the following benefits:

• Improved communication among members, their providers, and the health plan, therefore reducing administrative costs.
• Leveraged all available data in support of timely interventions by care managers.
• Supported self-care, with tools, health-risk assessments, and personalized content.
• Improved member satisfaction and the quality of care experience.

For more information about this project and/or how Inergex can help you with your specific business/IT objectives, please contact us at cs@inergex.com.

For more information about HealthNow New York Inc., please visit http://www.healthnowny.com.

CS_Inergex_HealthNow_CareAdvance_2808_W.pdf