SYBASE WAREHOUSE STUDIO TO DRIVE DECISION SUPPORT
AT BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Sybase, Inc. announced that New York Care Plus Insurance Company, Inc. has purchased Warehouse Studio, an integrated product set for delivering powerful data warehouse-driven business solutions. New York Care Plus Insurance Company will use Warehouse Studio to rapidly design, build and manage a data warehouse that will combine financial and administrative data for use in decision support, risk analysis and business performance measurement for two of its three subsidiaries, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York (BCBSWNY) as well as Blue Shield of Northeastern New York.
BCBSWNY will use Warehouse Studio to consolidate data from multiple sources so end users can conduct ad-hoc queries -- in plain English, rather than code -- and generate reports showing the relationship between costs, utilization of services, quality of care and patient outcomes. Warehouse Studio's meta data capability -- information about the origin of the data -- will ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data. The consolidated data will be used in the risk analysis of contracts that the organization has with healthcare providers and employers. Together, the business performance and risk analysis information will be used by the rating and actuarial departments in the development and pricing of new health plan products tailored to the needs of customers and prospects.
"Warehouse Studio is built around the way business users think about business," said Gary Kerl, senior vice president and chief information officer at BCBSWNY. "We depend on our warehouse for consistent and credible information. Warehouse Studio gives us end-to-end meta data management that allows us to browse warehouse contents as well as easily build queries without the aid of Information Technology."
Warehouse Studio provides a set of design, transformation, database, meta data management and administration capabilities optimized to meet customer's data warehousing needs. It provides organizations with the ability to quickly and cost-effectively meet immediate departmental business decision-making needs, with the flexibility and scalability to accommodate enterprise requirements.
"With the increased competition to earn and retain business from employers, managed-care organizations need to focus their efforts on three initiatives: customer retention, performance measurement and risk analysis. Warehouse Studio is optimized to meet these business demands," said Carol Fronduto, business development manager of Sybase Healthcare Industry Solutions. "Sybase maintains a leadership position in the healthcare industry as evidenced by the fact that our solutions are currently being used by eight of the top 10 managed care organizations in the United States."
BCBSWNY had been using a mainframe-based data warehouse, but it was difficult for end-users to run queries and the data was not always reliable. Following the implementation of Warehouse Studio, BCBSWNY plans to keep 39 months of data online. The warehouse will be approximately 100 gigabytes with about 200 users, 50 of which will be concurrent.
"We performed a very thorough selection process, and simply liked Sybase's technology best and felt is was the greatest value for our money," said Robert Giardini, manager of database and data administration for BCBSWNY. "Sybase products give us the most effective query results for our users with the least amount of work."
New York Care Plus Insurance Company, Inc. is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. This not-for-profit corporation includes three divisions -- the Buffalo-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Western New York, the Albany-based Blue Shield of Northeastern New York and the Binghamton-based Upstate Medicare Part B Claims Processing Division, serving some 700,000 New Yorkers through traditional and managed care coverage and more than 1.6 million through Medicare Part B claims administration.
Headquartered in Emeryville, CA, Sybase, Inc. is one of the ten largest global independent software companies. The company helps businesses manage and deliver applications, content and data anywhere they are needed. Sybase, Inc. is focused on delivering end-to-end solutions for mobile and embedded connected, data warehousing, and Web computing environments. The company's Web address is http://www.sybase.com