Cognos Wins Independent Health Association Contract

Independent Health Association has taken the lead in providing their employees with a painless way to deal with information. They have adopted an enterprise business intelligence solution from Cognos, one of the world's largest and most successful business intelligence companies, to gain insightful access into key business information.

Independent Health Association, a Buffalo, New York-based health maintenance organization (HMO), is using Cognos to access, report on, and analyze the massive amounts of data associated with billing and claims stored in their data warehouse.

Under the previous system, the company used to generate 150 monthly claims reports that consumed 150,000 pages and took two weeks to produce. Independent Health Association has now cut the report generation time by more than 75 per cent and eliminated all paperbound reporting with Cognos' OLAP solution.

"By providing employees with fast, easy access to data, we have saved huge amounts of time and money," said Dave Rogers, director of technical services at Independent Health Association. "With Cognos, employees can now instantly extract, report on, and analyze information via the corporate Intranet instead of sifting through thousands of sheets of paper. This capability also considerably reduces the strain on our IT resources."

Employees in Finance and Utilization Management and Review are also using Cognos tools to drill down into data and perform historical trend analysis. Employees are now able to answer more detailed questions like "How many emergency room claims did we handle last month in a particular region?" By drilling down into this data and uncovering cost-saving opportunities, Independent Health is able to reduce costs while continuing to deliver the highest level of service to their customers.

Independent Health Association will soon be extending Cognos technology to their partnering hospitals and physicians by way of a secure Extranet, enabling them to view monthly reports and membership status over the Web.

A long-standing customer, Independent Health Association has used Cognos for almost a decade. "When it came to selecting a BI vendor for our most recent initiative, the choice was very easy. Based on our previous relationship with Cognos and the breadth and depth of the solutions, it really was an obvious decision," said Rogers.

"Cognos enables employees at Independent Health Association to extract data and turn it into actionable information that is used to answer key business questions and make faster, more-informed decisions," said Ben Plummer, vice president of marketing. "By saving both time and money, the company can now reallocate resources previously spent on IT to more core business functions."

Independent Health

Headquartered in Buffalo, Independent Health began operations in 1980. In addition to the original HMO, the health coverage company has expanded its managed care offerings to include a point-of-service product and coverage for self-funded employers, Medicare and Medicaid managed care plans as well as a traditional insurance product. The company has a combined membership of nearly 400,000. For more information, visit Independent Health's Website at www.independenthealth.com.

Cognos

Cognos is one of the world's largest and most successful business intelligence companies. Founded in 1969, Cognos does business with 16,000 customers in more than 100 countries around the world. Cognos business intelligence solutions and services are also available from more than 2,900 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at www.cognos.com.