|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Accenture is a global management consulting,
technology services, and outsourcing company.
With 95,000 employees in 48 countries, and nearly
US$12 billion in annual revenue, the company is a
huge player in the global business arena.
One of Accenture’s many areas of focus is
government services. Within this vertical is the
human services segment, which encompasses such
areas as public assistance, labor systems, unemployment
insurance, child welfare, child support,
adult protective services, and government healthcare.
In this last area—government healthcare—an important new element in the long-standing
global alliance between Accenture and HP was
recently put in place: the HP NonStop server–based claims processing system at Texas Medicaid.
“As part of our alliance with HP, we jointly pursue
opportunities that include the sale and implementation
of HP hardware and software,” explained Dave
McCurley, a partner in Accenture’s Government
practice. “At Texas Medicaid, we teamed up early
in the engagement: HP marketing resources helped
us in the marketing phase, HP sales resources helped
us in the implementation phase, and HP support and
operations resources are now helping us in the
operations phase. The business partnership has
been extremely effective.” |
| |
| | |
|
|
|
|
A major project
| |
|
|
|
| As the third-largest processor of Medicaid claims,
the State of Texas was very pleased with the
NonStop servers (installed and operated by
EDS/NHIC) that had handled its mission-critical
claims processing for several years. As the expiration
date of the EDS/NHIC contract approached,
however, due diligence required the State to put
the project out to bid. In addition to the incumbent,
Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) threw its hat into
the ring—and won. ACS engaged Accenture to
handle system installation, application programming,
and ongoing management and support.
The State of Texas stipulated that claims
processing should stay on NonStop technology.
“The decision to implement this particular system
on the NonStop platform was made before we
arrived,” affirmed McCurley, “but I’ve been
impressed with the high reliability, availability, and
capacity of the equipment. We are actively looking
for ways to leverage more features of the NonStop
system, in order to create an even more robust and
flexible solution for our client.” Accenture upgraded
the system to the NonStop S86000 platform
and implemented various architectural changes,
increasing throughput and speed by as much as
40 percent over the previous system.
|
| |
| | |
|
|
|
Cutting the system over
| |
|
|
|
| The business challenge faced by Accenture and HP
was to move the entire operation from NHIC and
migrate all applications within a very short time
frame—while the application continued to change
and all existing service levels remained active.
“The incumbent had to keep running the old
system right up until the day we took it over,”
recalled McCurley. “We needed to completely replicate
their solution in a different data center on our
equipment, so we could just flip the switch, move
the last few hours of data across, and go live.”
The cutover was accomplished five days ahead
of schedule. The best part, according to McCurley, was
that nobody noticed. “The transition was so smooth
and so seamless that it was really a non-event,” he
said. “The move was completely transparent to the
users of the system.”
No small feat, considering that the State’s
NonStop system–based acute care and long-term
care processing applications account for some
1.75 million claims a week, with $200 million going
out to providers in the same time period. A NonStop
server is also used as the overall data warehouse
system, housing more than 4 terabytes of Medicaid
claims data for record keeping, audit, and analysis.
Federal regulators and administrators had estimated
that the project would take 18 months to two years;
in fact, the new system was operational in less
than 11 months. |
| |
| | |
|
|
