The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will utilize cloud computing as a cost-effective means to facilitate its insurance exchange initiative across the country.
The CMS is tapping Terremark Federal Group, Inc. to be the provider of cloud-computing services that will support the insurance exchange and Healthcare.gov plan finder programs.
Terremark will be responsible for developing and establishing the plan finder system, as well as transferring data and components from the CMS’ current proprietary commercial system to an open-platform solution in the cloud.
The entire system will be moved from data centers in New Jersey and Arizona to the enhanced CMS cloud-computing environment, allowing the CMS to increase Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) capabilities, instead of owning and managing the assets in house.
“This modification will allow CMS to increase capabilities of Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in this current CMS cloud computing environment,” according to a statement released by the CMS.
Benefits of the Cloud
Specialized tools will be designed and deployed by Terremark for the CMS that enhance medical-loss ratio and other health reform applications according to requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
States will be able to coordinate care and treatment activities across the cloud-based platform to enhance collaboration, prevent duplicate testing and avoid unnecessary treatments.
Enhanced security features will be implemented to ensure data security in compliance with federal requirements that include: two-factor authentication, in-depth monitoring, and several other security management capabilities.
Providers will get robust managed service abilities to support ACA functionalities, health insurance exchanges and enterprise-level document management systems.
The Bottom Line
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has awarded over $400 million to 20 states to help them design and implement the IT infrastructure necessary to launch state health insurance exchanges.
Utilizing cloud computing should make the implementation easier and more cost-effective for the early adopters of this program, allowing them to do more in less time with that money, and paving the way for the rest of the country to join the program.
The Terremark contract runs a total of five years and focuses on enabling the CMS’ health reform through cloud computing, but will expand to also include general system development initiatives.
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