HPE has sold MMIS solutions to 20 states, but Kansas, which uses the interChange MMIS platform, is HPE’s first modular MMIS customer. According to the vendor, the new solution is intended to “strengthen the state’s ability to manage Medicaid policies and finances across disparate programs and agencies.”
The upgrade will give the state a new foundation for Medicaid, said KDHE Secretary Susan Mosier, and provide government leaders with information in near real-time that allows for better decision-making. The main technical challenge of this upgrade, she told Government Technology via email, is ensuring that the system functions in a true modular fashion.
“With a fully modular system, we will be able to upgrade and enhance functionality more easily and timely to better serve our clients,” she said. “We will also be able to connect with other agencies, organizations and departments to share information that will allow us to provide better service and, by the system operating in a virtual private cloud, we will have the expansibility and scalability we’ll need to more readily bring on new functions and data.”
Project partner health IT solutions provider Cerner Corp. will assist in the upgrade. And this approach is a departure from how states traditionally manage such systems, said Cerner President Zane Burke, because operations are typically based on retroactive claims data.
“This is an unprecedented opportunity,” he said, “to contribute to the improvement of health-care delivery and the health of communities on a statewide scale.”
