Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

PROJECT DRIVERS

• Business Drivers
  • Increasing competition for providers and recipients requires new value-added services from health care partners
  • Treatment cost reductions can be facilitated through a better exchange of patient information, promoting preventative care
• Technology Drivers
  • Current architecture does not provide the scalability required to meet CIO's strategic vision
  • Current provider system has limited access options, constraining potential user base
  • Expensive upgrades and support on existing non-standard hardware

Results

• Open, multi-tier, scalable Web solution
• Rapid prototyping techniques used to achieve a 6 week implementation timeframe

• Application - Target
  • Thin, browser based client
  • Java/CORBA business objects
  • Netscape Enterprise Server using Java Servlets and LDAP directory services
  • Mainframe data sources (IMS) accessed via Java based 3270 emulator
  • HP-UX environment

• Benefits
  • Immediate expansion of potential user base - accessible from any browser
  • Drastically simplified user interface, easing access to legacy data