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Anthem, Inc. (Indianapolis), the largest for-profit managed health care company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, has agreed to expand a services agreement with IBM (Armonk, N.Y.). Through the agreement, IBM and Anthem will collaborate to help drive Anthem’s digital transformation and deliver an enhanced digital experience for its nearly 40 million consumers, according to an IBM announcement.
Tim Skeen, SVP and CIO, Anthem, Inc.
“We are seeing a dynamic change in the healthcare industry, requiring us to be more agile and responsive, utilizing advanced technology like artificial intelligence to drive better quality and outcomes for consumers,” comments Tim Skeen, SVP and CIO, Anthem, Inc. “Our continued strategic partnership with IBM will help establish a stronger foundation for Anthem to respond to the changing demands in the market, deliver greater quality of services for consumers and help accelerate Anthem’s focus on leading the transformation of healthcare to create a more accessible, more affordable, more accountable healthcare system for all Americans.”
Under the expanded agreement, IBM will provide Anthem with enterprise services for its mainframe and data center server and storage infrastructure management, the vendor reports. IBM will also work with Anthem towards creating an artificial intelligence (AI) environment which will allow for an automated infrastructure providing 24/7 digital capabilities. “This will bring greater value and access to Anthem’s consumers, care providers, and employees,” an IBM statement asserts.
Martin Jetter, SVP, IBM Global Technology Services.
IT Automation
The agreement also calls for a continuation of IT automation work. Since 2015, the two companies have implemented over 130 bots, automating over 70 percent of the monthly high volume repetitive tasks, according to the vendor. That includes bots that can identify when a server is reaching capacity to shift workloads to other less utilized servers ensuring that work is not impacted. This capability has improved systems availability as well as freed up resources to work on higher-value projects, IBM reports.
“The collaboration between IBM Services and Anthem has already laid the groundwork to improve healthcare processes and quality,” comments Martin Jetter, SVP, IBM Global Technology Services. “Our latest agreement will accelerate Anthem’s growth strategy and continued leadership as one of the largest healthcare insurance companies and provide a solid path to bringing new efficiencies in driving digital transformation.”