Kokua Line: What type of work will HMSA be contracting out?

News that Hawaii’s largest health insurer is considering outsourcing some work to an India-based company (808ne.ws/1028sty) sparked many questions on Friday. Here are the responses from Sudhakar Gummadi, Chief Information Security Officer and Privacy Officer at HMSA:

Question: Exactly what types of work will HMSA contract out, especially in India?

Reply: “Application development / breakage fixes for our claims applications. All HMSA member data is stored and secured in a US data center for these operations. “

Gummadi explained in a follow-up email that developing software applications involves “creating a computer program or a set of programs to perform the various tasks that a business needs.” Each application creation process follows the same steps: gathering requirements, designing prototypes, testing, implementing and integrating. The Provisioning Partner will manage ongoing operations, maintenance, upgrades, patches, and user support for the application.

Application troubleshooting service “may include system repairs, upgrades or installation, (and) application software troubleshooting.”

Question: What safeguards are in place to protect the privacy of HMSA members and prevent fraud? Kokua Line receives members of the HMSA who are very concerned about their medical privacy, identity theft and cybercrime.

A: “The HMSA governance team has conducted a thorough evaluation of our partner’s security / privacy programs to ensure they are equivalent to HMSA’s data protections. “

Question: What assurances can HMSA give that it will be safe?

A: “The type of work that will be done by our partner is focused on application development and maintenance of our claims applications. This is very much in line with the type of work that many other healthcare companies have been doing for years. HMSA will continue to work with our partner to continuously monitor all warranties and protect the confidential data of our members, groups and suppliers.

Auwe

I am a recreational tennis player who frequents public tennis courts. While I’m playing, very often people will come and wait on the court I’m on. These people were playing loud music from their radios or cell phones. Some do not sit on the waiting bench but on the ground (four or five at a time), while the point is in play. They walked in and out of the tennis court at will. While they were waiting, they were talking very loudly. Some would do stretching exercises like yoga, some would even use their racket to bounce the ball, others would do shadow tennis (like shadow boxing). Several times I politely asked them to shut up or stay seated and they accused me of being a control freak. Overall, it is not uncommon for them to know nothing about tennis courtesy. It would help if there were signs telling players to wait outside the tennis court door. – A reader

Mahalo

Mahalo to the people who fix our trash cans. I called them and emailed them on a Saturday a few weeks ago to tell them that one of the wheels in my container fell off. Within hours, someone came to my house and fixed it. The following Monday, two days later, a worker from that division called to make sure my problem was resolved. A week later, the same wheel broke when the truck picked up our garbage. So I called back and got a reminder asking me to leave the empty container on the sidewalk that night, and someone would be there within three days. The next day a worker called me to inform me that he would likely be there later in the day after he checked to see if a spare tire was available. It arrived that afternoon, and I have a recently repaired cart. I was very impressed with the efficiency of this part of the Department of Environmental Services. – Rob

Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or send an email to [email protected]