Electronic transaction delivery specialist DHSwitch has completed a year-long redundancy project aimed at eliminating system downtime and enhancing real-time healthcare claims delivery and processing.
The project involved the development of two "mirror" sites, one housed at Comparex Park and the other on DHSwitch`s own premises, ensuring all critical systems are duplicated. If any component at one of the sites fails, the mirror site takes over the transaction seamlessly.
According to Christo Goosen, information systems manager at DHSwitch, the project differs from traditional redundancy models in that the two mirrored sites are both live and transacting 24 by seven.
"There is an increasing demand from our healthcare service provider clients (ie pharmacists and GPs) for real-time transaction processing capability so we designed an API (application programme interface) as a plug-in for their practice or pharmacy management software.
"Basically, the API distributes the transactions between the sites in what is in effect a load balancing exercise allowing us to run both sites in parallel," he explains.
If a transaction is interrupted at any stage in the process, even to the point of a problem with processing at the healthcare funder or medical aid, the API will recognise this and redirect the transaction. It will also recognise duplicated transactions.
The benefits of this full utilisation of system capacity speak for themselves. Goosen says that in the past DHSwitch could boast an average systems up time of over 99%.
"This was pretty good, but we had to consider that, for our customers, even a couple of hours down time in a month can be critical. Since the mirror sites went live in April this year, DHSwitch customers have experienced no downtime at all."
The sites are inter-connected by both a 100Mb laser link line and a 512K diginet line and operate through separate Telkom exchanges as a further safeguard against failure.
"In addition," says Goosen, "we also operate an Internet backup as a failsafe. Here again we employ two separate Internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure uninterrupted service."
He confirms that DHSwitch is in the process of standardising on high-end Sun Microsystems hardware to further enhance system stability and reliability.
For more information, contact Christo Goosen, information systems manager, DHSwitch, on (011) 265 5480 or e-mail christog@dhsolutions.co.za.
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DHSwitch, the leader in electronic claims delivery in the South African healthcare market, is a subsidiary of DH Solutions, a company formed in 2001 following the merger between the Bytes Technology Group`s Mediswitch and Comparex`s QEDI.
DHSwitch`s value-add services and solutions offer healthcare service providers instantly improved cash flow and reduced administration costs through real-time and batch claims processing. With links to 95% of SA`s healthcare funders, the company currently services over 2 400 pharmacies and around 8 000 general practitioners.
Headquartered in Midrand, the company has offices in Cape Town and Durban and processes in the order of 5 million claims per month.
Additional information can be found at www.dhsolutions.co.za.
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