IE11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Medicare, Medicaid Look to Cloud to Deploy Resources Efficiently

In a move that could have state and local resonance, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is moving toward a 'Cloud First' approach and has inked a new contract with San Carlos-based technology provider MarkLogic.

electronic-health-records.jpg
A multi-year licensing agreement between the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and technology provider MarkLogic could have an impact on Medi-Cal and Medicare providers in California, as the federal agency looks off-prem.

The roughly three-year pact with data integration specialist MarkLogic renews an existing relationship that dates to late 2011, when CMS began collaborating with the company ahead of a software purchase the following year and a more extensive partnership, Julie Furt, MarkLogic senior vice president of global consulting and training services, confirmed via email. MarkLogic has served as “the database of record for the Federally Funded Marketplace,” Furt said, pointing out it’s better known by the Web front-end HealthCare.gov “as well as the data layer for the Data Services Hub” — the part of the family of systems supporting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that routes requests between entities including insurers, states and CMS. Among the takeaways:

• The new contract, announced Wednesday by MarkLogic, was signed in December and runs through February 2022. It affords CMS “the flexibility to leverage its use of MarkLogic as mission needs change over time,” Furt told Techwire. MarkLogic did not release the dollar value of the contract.

• Why might CMS need flexibility? The agency has been discussing moving HealthCare.gov to Amazon Web Services “for about a year,” Furt said, adding that MarkLogic’s “understanding of their shift towards a Cloud First approach has solidified during this time.” Officials at CMS had not responded to requests for comment at press time; however, this article may be updated.

• CMS’ Cloud First initiative, Furt said, centers on “moving many of the agency’s applications to commercial cloud providers.”

“Leveraging commercial cloud providers allows CMS and other agencies the flexibility to use the infrastructure resources they need over time more efficiently,” Furt said. In a news release, MarkLogic said its technology could be used by the ACA and in CMS applications to swiftly build and deploy apps in the cloud.

In a statement, MarkLogic CEO Gary Bloom noted the company offers “the platform and approach to make data more accessible to all.”

“CMS is a showcase for how to successfully integrate, access and share massive amounts of data required to improve population health and to leverage the power of the cloud — all while maintaining advanced, data-level security,” Bloom said.

• It’s unclear exactly how the new contract and CMS’ focus on cloud could change how the public interacts with CMS. MarkLogic tech brings together data sets that may be “traditionally hard to merge,” enabling a wide variety of outcomes, the senior vice president said.

“Specific to the existing ACA-related applications which were migrated to AWS earlier this year, CMS has gained more flexibility to add or remove capacity at peak times, like Open Enrollment. This added flexibility can translate into improved end-user experience on the website during those peak times,” Furt added.

Theo Douglas is Assistant Managing Editor of Industry Insider — California.