South African healthcare administrator D&E Health Benefits, part of Fedsure Health, has implemented Sybase's Adaptive Server IQ Multiplex database, a data analysis and information delivery solution that enables improved health fund management.
Data warehousing consultant for D&E Health Benefits, Tony Ugolini, explains that D&E was experiencing a huge backlog in customer queries that had resulted in an ad hoc approach to requests for assistance. This in turn led to declining customer service standards and increased staffing requirements. In addition, the non-integrated nature of the company's data meant that management of information was becoming an expensive exercise.
D&E Health Benefits had acquired two IBM AS400 servers, located in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Society and claims information was spread over the two databases, which ran independently and were decentralised. This made it very difficult to view company information in its entirety, and required additional IT and administration staff to manage the systems. The absence of a central data repository and of multidimensional information also meant that the system hindered future growth.
"We decided to investigate the possibility of implementing a data warehouse solution that would optimise our customer and claims management system," says Ugolini. "We specifically evaluated front-end tools, databases and warehouse engines, and carefully examined various data transfer processes. Our users requested quick and easy direct access to the system, and improved response times. The aim was to implement a solution that would enable the company to meet and exceed market demands, improve customer service levels, reduce our request backlog, improve customer query turnaround times, and relieve our IT department of unnecessary and time-consuming tasks."
The solution was selected on the basis of product availability and support, cost benefit, and benchmarking. The Business Objects suite of decision support tools including query, reporting, online analytical processing, data mining, and DSS administration was selected as the front-end tool, while the data transfer process was jointly developed by D&E and Sybase. The data transfer was effected by putting all company data onto magnetic tape and downloading it onto the AS 400 backend. The process was fully automated, easy to manage and well within budget.
A number of databases were compared, and it was found that Sybase offered wide local support where many other vendors offered support in certain areas only. The combination of Sybase's Adaptive Server IQ Multiplex with a Sun Microsystems server proved to be the most cost-effective, as well as the most stable and fault tolerant. Adaptive Server IQ, a database specifically designed for data warehousing, is a powerful ad hoc query server designed to increase the speed of queries performed against large amounts of data. It features vertical data storage and compression, optimised access methods for all types of data, bit-wise storage technology, standard open interfaces and scalability. It also enables multiple users to ask multiple questions and supports huge volumes of data.
"Once the solution had been implemented," notes Ugolini, "we found that our systems were running between 25 to 135 times faster than before, and that our response times were down to mere seconds as opposed to two weeks. Ease of administration and solid support from Sybase facilitated the entire process. In terms of cost, time and resources, the company saw a return on investment within nine months of implementation, project dates were met, and D&E IT staff involvement was kept to a minimum."
The solution has many advantages for the company in terms of recording and integrating member demographics - including regional information, member income, family size and age brackets. In particular, claims management has been vastly improved as a result of contributions versus claims reporting, trend analysis, and managed or preventative care. Fraud detection has been simplified, as it is easy to detect which service providers are over-referring or over-charging.
"All targets relating to time and budget were met, and the implementation was exceptionally well-managed," concludes Ugolini. "We also have a solution that is stable, reliable, consistent and easily upgradeable."
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