Blue Shield of California and Microsoft are partnering on a cloud ecosystem that will integrate disparate sources of member data in a consolidated, near-real-time format.
Through the collaboration, the organizations are building a new integrated data and analytics hub called Blue Shield’s Experience Cube, which will run on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, according to a July 26 news release.
The payer said it is looking to get greater insights into its 4.8 million members' health data to create more personalized services and access to quality care, along with closing care gaps.
The first use of the Experience Cube will create a digital health record that includes a member’s health conditions, lab results, medications, emergency room visits, utilization, plan coverage, and other details. That information will then be used to facilitate better care coordination with providers, members, and Blue Shield care managers looking to address social determinants of health.
The partnership also aims to address the technological challenges that exist to process and analyze massive amounts of data. Through Azure, the payer can process billions of transactions in a few short weeks, compared to the months it would take using legacy systems. Blue Shield noted that it was able to deploy a new healthcare system into its cloud system nine months faster than before, and complex transaction processing took 90 minutes compared to the previous 70 hours.