GOVERNOR ANNOUNCES ADVANCED SYSTEM TO MONITOR MEDICAID; KIDCARE TO RAISE EFFICIENCY, REDUCE FRAUD
Governor George H. Ryan has announced that the state will build an advanced computer system to manage Illinois' $6 billion medical assistance programs.
"This leading-edge technology will give Illinois the tools to improve the quality of health care provided to Illinois families while protecting the interest of taxpayers," said Ryan. "The system will place Illinois among the nation's leaders in managing medical assistance programs.
"The new system will give the state the ability to retrieve and analyze huge volumes of information in minutes rather than days with current capabilities. With this information, the state can make more informed decisions about the quality and scope of health care, more readily detect fraud and abuse and more efficiently control costs."
The system, called a data warehouse, will be used by the Illinois Department of Public Aid to administer Medicaid and KidCare, programs which provide health coverage to nearly 1.4 million persons each month. The department processes 25.7 million medical claims per year and tracks nearly 50,000 medical providers.
State Public Aid Director Ann Patla said, "This data warehouse will help the department make decisions and establish policies based on the use of its programs. The system, for example, will tell the department more quickly what levels of care children receive in Chicago, compared to downstate communities."
The department has signed a contract with Bull Worldwide Information Systems of Billerica, Mass., for $28 million, for the data warehouse, which will begin operation next year. Bull, which operates similar data warehouses in Michigan and Minnesota, will provide the hardware, software and services to build the data warehouse.
"We are extremely pleased that Illinois has the confidence in our ability to assist the state in providing ongoing quality medical care and to reduce fraud and abuse," said Jack Ginsburg, vice president of Bull's Public Sector Business Unit. "Our goal always is to provide customized solutions that meet the specific needs and priorities of agencies from state to state. The Department of Public Aid has a visionary approach to using technology to help address public policy issues, and we're proud to work with the agency in this endeavor."
For more information from Bull Worldwide Information Systems, contact Steve Puleo at 978/294-6418.
Present in nearly 90 countries, with more than 20,000 employees and combined revenues of more than $4.2 billion in 1998, Bull offers a comprehensive range of systems, infrastructure software and IT services through focused innovation, alliances with the best partners and its own integration expertise. The company's North/South American operations are headquartered in Billerica, Mass. Global headquarters are located in Paris, France. The company's U.S. web address is http://www.us.bull.com.
Bull has been active in the public sector for more than 30 years, and is particularly strong in the U.S. in state and local government. Today, Bull has a presence in 41 states, 60 municipalities and educational institutions, and 150 agencies. In fact, the public sector is Bull's number one business in the U.S., earning approximately 40% of U.S. revenues. In 1998, the company's public sector revenues grew 45%.
Bull provides I.T. systems in four major public sector areas: health and human services, criminal justice and public safety, public education, and tax and treasury.
Bull's customers include the states of Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota, Arizona, Iowa, Georgia, Alabama, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, as well as Genesee County (Michigan), Maricopa County (Arizona), Clark County (Nevada), Jefferson County (Kentucky), and Fulton County (Georgia).
The public sector market is also a particular area of expertise for the company abroad, where Bull I.T. solutions can be found at the national-government level in numerous countries, particularly in Europe. Bull's U.S. Public Sector Business Unit web site can be found at http://www.us.bull.com/public.
Bull is a leading supplier of advanced decision-support information technology solutions to state and local government, providing market expertise, strategic partnerships, and enabling technologies.
Bull's I.T. solutions involve data warehousing, document management, network management, high-end servers, PCs (products and services), relational database computing and electronic services.
The contract is valued at $28 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, Bull will handle the migration of historical data to the data warehouse, as well as system design, implementation and training, and ongoing systems operation and maintenance. Bull will provide the hardware, software, and services to build the data warehouse solution.
The fundamental objective is, naturally, to improve the delivery of government services to residents - always a state's top priority. This objective must be placed, however, within the context of the many recent federal health and human services reform initiatives. Block grants and states' flexibility to administer federal programs has redefined state agencies' roles. The agencies have evolved to become brokers of services, as opposed to their former role of service providers. In so doing, they have had to refocus their missions on case management, service delivery and client support. These data warehouses allow them to do that more efficiently and cost-effectively, and thus deliver better service to residents.
Yes. Illinois is the third major state that has selected Bull to provide a data warehousing solution to help improve the quality of its medical care. Both Michigan and Minnesota use Bull decision-support solutions to assist in the management of their Medicaid programs, reducing the time from weeks to minutes that it takes agency personnel to obtain critical information that is stored on mainframe computers, reducing fraud and abuse, and saving on administrative costs.
Yes, Bull is seeing a number of the more forward-looking states adopting such systems - i.e, Michigan and Minnesota. Bull also has major data warehouse contracts for health and human services pending in other large states.
Better access to information has helped these states deal positively with a number of issues, including improving child immunization rates, more effectively detecting fraud and abuse, and reducing overall administrative costs. For example, Michigan has vastly improved its child-immunization rates and significantly reduced fraud and abuse, as well as saving approximately 25% in agency administrative costs since putting their data warehouse into operation.
Bull believes that as states continue to strive to adapt to federal changes and become more efficient at providing services, more and more of them will recognize the benefits achievable with such solutions. Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota are three good examples of those who have already capitalized on such technology. We expect to see other large Bull contracts for such decision-support systems in place in other large states in the near future.
Steve Puleo Communications Manager, Bull Information Systems, 300 Concord Road, Billerica, MA 01821; Tel: 978-294-6418 Fax: 978-294-4908; Steve.Puleo@bull.com.