Status Medical Aid Administrators, administrator of group and individual medical aid schemes for more than 50 000 members, has enlisted FlexGen tools from EasiRun Software to gear up for the millennium switch and cater for continuing strong growth.
Status joint managing director Joe Kunniger says that the organisation moved from a mainframe to a networked computing environment eight years ago, to avoid the trap of proprietary systems, but then business needs took precedence over further IT growth.
"As the business took off, the IT department had to cater for expansion and became locked into the first phase of the project," says Kunniger. "However, changes in the medical aid market convinced Status of the need to upgrade and implement a user-friendly system with a full range of functionality.
"In addition, the approach of year 2000 meant that Status had to take immediate action."
Status has worked with EasiRun for several years, opting for EasiRun on the strength of its Cobol expertise, as the language forms the core of Status`s IT systems. Status evaluated a range of off-the-shelf packages, but opted to redevelop its medical aid administration system in-house using EasiRun products and support services.
The former system - hand-written in Cobol and running on a 250-user Novell network - has been updated to a Windows NT-based system, using FlexGen Acucobol Development System, Acucobol Runtime System, FlexGen Frontier and Cobol RPC supplied by EasiRun.
Cobol continues to underpin the Status system - having established a track record for reliability and stability - but Kunniger opted for the move to Windows to bring Status in line with market developments, as well as to enhance user-friendliness.
"The Windows environment facilitates parameter-driven computing, rather than program-driven processes, which means that business requirements can come first, instead of computing considerations," says Kunniger.
Status has adopted an innovative approach to training on the new system, identifying a few key staff members believed to have high potential. They have been trained on the system, and pass on that knowledge in an informal manner.
Plans still in the pipeline include introducing a database component, to enable Status to implement a data warehouse in order to extract maximum benefit from business information.
"FlexGen is a powerful and flexible application development tool, offering a high level of productivity and enabling Status to develop a comprehensive new system using a very small in-house team," says EasiRun MD Pat Fitzgerald.
The functionality provided by EasiRun`s FlexGen and Cobol tools has enabled Status`s small, self-sufficient IT team to take on full responsibility for developing and maintaining the current system.
Status`s membership base has more than doubled over the past year, growing from 20 000 to more than 50 000. New members include Tiger Oats, JCCI, Grintech, CIMAS and Good Hope. In the same period, the organisation`s staff complement has grown by more that 50 percent.
In addition to exceptional growth, Status has had to gear up for sweeping changes in laws governing medical aid schemes, which see age-related contributions give way to payments based on salary level or number of dependants.
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