Johannesburg, 11 Aug 1998
Execusys, a Red Brick VAR for Software Futures, has signed its first Red Brick customer in managed healthcare organisation MX Health.
MX Health has chosen Red Brick as the engine for its data warehouse to boost its data handling performance. According to IT director Dennis Strydom, MX Health needed to upgrade its data warehousing facilities to cope with its volumes of accumulated data.
MX Health offers outsourced managed services to the healthcare industry in general, including large employer groups and individual members. Its clients rely on MX Health to manage medical expenses without compromising quality of service.
"Information is the cornerstone of our business," says Strydom. "We are effectively an information factory, designing clinical models and systems to assist medical funding companies within the industry to manage and control medical expenses."
Information is sourced locally and abroad. MX Health maintains a tollfree hotline 24 hours a day for its clients, providing diverse medical information from general advice and treatment recommendations to disease and medicine management and hospital benefit management.
"Our database is constantly updated with health information and up-to-date diagnostics," adds Strydom. "In order to maintain our service delivery levels, we had to find the best way to manage vast amounts of data."
Red Brick is distributed in South Africa by Software Futures, a Computer Configurations Holdings company, and supplied by Execusys, an authorised Red Brick VAR.
"We chose Red Brick after an extensive evaluation period, in which it proved the fastest solution," says Strydom. "Red Brick has native translators into cross-platform database engines that support the most sophisticated record-handling facilities we`ve seen."
MX Health typically processes data models using 30 to 40 million rows. In a simulated test, the company managed to shrink a 2 million record query from one hour to less than five minutes, and similar performance benefits are expected using larger models.
The system is being implemented, although several operational facilities are already in place. It is installed on an IBM RS/6000 feeding a Compaq 5000R NT server and 130 Windows 95 workstations. MX Health will implement Red Brick in conjunction with Excusys, Software Futures and Marknet Consulting Services.
"We have established an excellent working relationship with Execusys, which has indepth experience with IT services in the healthcare industry, including data warehousing," says Strydom. "As a data warehouse consultancy, we`ve been impressed with Software Futures` expertise and skills resources, giving us total confidence in the partnership we`ve selected."
As part of a phased rollout, Red Brick will initially be available to eight users, and Strydom expects this number to increase substantially after testing.
"If our implementation goes to schedule, we hope to offer our clients Web-based access to our data resources by second quarter next year," he says. "We`ll soon see a return on investment through savings on expert resources, staff training and a reduction in paper-based documentation."
MX Health is the third medical organisation to choose Red Brick, after Transmed and Medicross.
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