As Large Health System Goes Live in Louisiana, Business Edge Systems earns high praise for their key role in the development of large health care system for the State of Louisiana
Rivonia, SA & Baton Rouge, USA Business Edge Systems, has recently played a key role in the development of a major system for the State of Louisiana in the USA. The systems has gone live with a representative of the federal agency responsible saying, "This is the first Medicaid Eligibility System ever that has gone in, on time and on budget." Once again, this proves that South African IT skills are of a world-class standard.
When the State of Louisiana`s Department of Health and Hospitals identified the need to develop a new medical aid eligibility system (MEDS) they awarded the project to SPL WorldGroup, Business Edge Systems= international partner. SPL WorldGroup then called on Business Edge Systems to provide development and project management skills.
In American terms, Louisiana is a relatively poor state, but they do have an excellent social welfare structure. A vital component of the overall welfare facility is a Medicaid programme that allows unemployed and poor citizens to qualify for quality hospital care. Recent welfare reform, with consequent changes in programmes and regulations at both federal and state levels, has exacerbated the already complex business of determining and tracking Medicaid eligibility.
The specification thus called for a robust system that supports eligibility determination for all current Medicaid programmes, that is flexibly designed for easy maintenance and future enhancements that may be required to meet legislative changes, and which also increases worker productivity and accuracy.
As the existing system is not Y2K compliant, the project team has had to adhere to tight timeframes in order to ensure that the new system is implemented on time.
Although Business Edge Systems has been providing expertise for the development of the core on-line and batch system, the project has been conducted on a multinational level, with parallel development taking place in Chicago and Manila.
Karen Malkin, Business Edge Systems` project manager says, AMEDS will deliver many benefits to both the 1000 user base and the applicants because, with the added functionality, it is highly flexible and easy to use. It steers workers through the process of capturing applications and handles the common occurrence of changes in the make up of Medicaid cases. Budget worksheets are captured on-line, based on flexible templates that minimise the impact of changes in legislation while an integrated workflow subsystem provides internal notification and approval processing. Also provided is the necessary administration to manage it all and a robust set of interfaces to and from various other state and federal systems.@
She goes further to say, "The project has been an unqualified success. Being a remote and distributed development project, we were presented with some
unique challenges, not the least of which has been working across a number of different time zones. Twenty-four hour support on the mainframe has been required to allow development to continue in all three cities. Fortunately, the excellent relationships that we established with the users in Baton Rouge and the other development teams compensated for this. Also, the comprehensively structured approach and regular cross-project quality reviews implemented proved highly effective.
Charles Castille, Undersecretary Department of Health and Hospitals, has been highly complimentary of how the project has been handled. "SPL WorldGroup`s business approach, combined with their unique development methodology, has really impressed us."
Dexa Morgan, Assistant Director, Bureau of Health Services Financing, is equally impressed. "No other vendor we evaluated," she says, "had the solid methodology and approach that SPL WorldGroup has afforded us. Furthermore, the savings, both in time and money, will be enormous and I have no doubt that when the Year 2000 comes, we`ll be ready."
A team with representations from Business Edge Systems and SPL WorldGroup`s Chicago and Manila offices is currently on site in Baton Rouge to monitor the implementation of the new system.
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