Highmark positioned to enhance preventive health care and improve service through better access and analysis of patient information
Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR), has been selected by Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, one of the nation's largest Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, to significantly bolster the insurance company's data warehousing and decision-support capabilities.The Teradata(R) data warehouse supports Highmark's data mining, advanced analytic activities and mandated reporting capabilities, including initiatives such as customer relationship management (CRM), condition management and preventative care interventions, physician and hospital quality-of-care and cost measurement, mandated reporting for accreditation (HEDIS/NCQA) and employer consulting.
Highmark recently migrated its five-year-old DB2-based data warehouse to the Teradata platform during a 90-day implementation. The migration decision was based on the results of a head-to-head benchmark of the full warehouse that found the Teradata-based solution provided a 300 to 700 percent improvement in query and processing performance over a dedicated DB2 environment. It achieved even greater results when compared to the production DB2 legacy environment that is shared by various transaction processing applications at Highmark.
"Our legacy DB2 mainframe warehouse environment, which served us well for several years, just could not keep up with the performance needs of our decision-support analysts and customer expectations," said Darren Macioce, vice president of Healthcare Informatics at Highmark. "As our analytic capabilities and business dependencies continued to grow, the corresponding turnaround and query performance of our legacy platform diminished significantly. In addition to providing a superior technical product, Teradata was committed to helping us migrate to their technology quickly while minimizing the disruption to our staff and processes."
In transitioning to the Teradata platform, Highmark was able to leverage and continue to use its existing investment in reporting and data mining applications, statistical analysis tools and skill set, as well as the underlying database architecture, while at the same time dramatically improving turnaround times. Highmark has been able to quickly leverage the new Teradata database platform for business-critical decision-making using previously developed analytic applications and capabilities without needing to rewrite or modify the analysis programs or legacy ETL processes.
Highmark selected Teradata because of its overall information management and analytical capabilities and will look to migrate other business-critical decision-support applications and users to the new platform. "It's pretty hard to dispute the business value that the Teradata environment brings, particularly when you see complex analytic queries completed in seconds compared to hours, or even days, in our old environment," said Macioce, who feels the number of daily analytic work-cycles has increased three-fold per user since the migration.
The Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield information warehouse integrates more than 280 million healthcare services per year from hospitals, physicians, pharmacies and other healthcare providers from around the country that provide services to its members on a local and national basis. Representing more than $23 billion in claims expense and providing significant clinical value, the warehouse supports a large number of clinical quality-improvement, medical management, fraud-detection, financial and regulatory reporting activities and various managed-care and business management functions.
About Highmark
Highmark Inc. serves some six million Pennsylvanians, operating as Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield in the 29 counties of Western Pennsylvania, and doing business as Pennsylvania Blue Shield in the remainder of the state. The company serves nearly 23 million members nationally through its subsidiary companies -- United Concordia Companies; Clarity and Davis Vision; and the Highmark Life and Casualty Group -- which market employee benefit programs and services for dental, vision and life and casualty coverage. Highmark also operates as a Medicare Part A fiscal intermediary and a Medicare Part B carrier. More information about Highmark and its services may be found at www.highmark.com .
About Teradata Division
Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, offers powerful analytical solutions that help businesses drive growth. Teradata solutions include the Teradata database, and analytical applications for customer relationship management, operations and financial management, business performance management and e-business. To learn more about Teradata Division and its solutions, go to http://www.Teradata.com .
About NCR Corporation
NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) is a leader in providing Relationship Technology(TM) solutions to customers worldwide. NCR's Relationship Technology solutions include the Teradata(R) database and analytical applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and demand chain management, store automation systems and automated teller machines (ATMs). The company's business solutions are built on the foundation of its long- established industry knowledge and consulting expertise, value-adding software, global customer support services, a complete line of consumable and media products, and leading edge hardware technology. NCR employs 32,900 in more than 100 countries, and is a component stock of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. More information about NCR and its solutions may be found at www.ncr.com .
NCR and Teradata are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries.
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SOURCE NCR Corporation
CONTACT: Dan Conway, Teradata Division of NCR Corporation,
+1-858-485-3029, or dan.conway@ncr.com; or Aaron Billger of Highmark Inc.,
+1-412-544-7826, or aaron.billger@highmark.com
URL: http://www.ncr.com
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