Medibank chooses MOVEit file transfer, will save more than $30,000 annually

Medibank meets health industry regulations and secures sensitive health files for millions of citizens with Progress® MOVEit® Managed File Transfer

Medibank is Australia’s largest provider of integrated health insurance and health solutions. Since its inception in 1976, it has provided health insurance to cover more than 3.8 million Australians. Each year, it pays billions of dollars’ worth of hospital and allied health claims and directly delivers almost 600,000 clinical services, helping millions live healthier, fuller lives. Medibank members also depend on it for other insurance needs, including access to insurance for domestic and international travel, as well as life, trauma and pet insurance.

The Challenge

Technology and innovation are important to Medibank. It provides members with exclusive access to a telephone-based nurse 24/7, personal support when in hospital, an online health hub and mobile health applications. Medibank is committed to helping its members to better manage and improve their health and well-being through preventative action and medical treatment at all life stages.

Each day, Medibank employees must transfer up to 15GB of confidential healthcare files, a volume that is expanding by around 3GB per month, in line with 20 percent customer growth. These files include patient policy records that must be transferred securely between Medibank’s sites and 15 external business partners.

Medibank has to ensure that all of its operations are transparent and auditable. It must meet Australian government and Commonwealth regulations and policies, including the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards and the Privacy Act 1988 as outlined by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Jason Atkinson, IT Claims & Product Team Lead for Medibank explained: “As a health organization handling large volumes of sensitive data, security and compliance were probably the biggest drivers behind this project. It was important to us that any solution not only had good security controls in operation but also excellent auditing capabilities.”

Prior to its decision to research and invest in an automated file transfer system that would allow IT to manage, view, secure and control all file transfer activity through a single system, Medibank had no dedicated transfer tool in place. Instead Medibank employees used email when file size limits allowed.

The Solution

Several factors underlie the department’s decision to implement MOVEit. “We were looking to save time, both so that our valuable IT resources could be better used, and so that both regular information exchange partners and so that both regular information exchange partners and those with occasional requests would be less burdened," stated the Integration Services Manager for the department.

“MOVEit has an exceptionally intuitive web interface, which has radically decreased the time required to set up data exchanges,” explained a senior database analyst. While ease of use was important, so was security, “MOVEit passed our security team’s demanding requirements for end-to-end encryption and auditability with flying colors.

The department uses MOVEit Managed File Transfer for regular file exchange with its many partner organizations. “We’re dealing with dozens of different information systems,” the database analyst said. “The ability to talk to all of them is making MOVEit our standard for data exchange.” Several business processes have already been implemented with MOVEit, including medical transcription from doctors working with the region’s children’s medical services.

Once MOVEit Managed File Transfer is fully implemented, the department estimates that it will achieve substantial time savings that will translate into dollar savings of over $30,000 each year, a figure that will increase as the number of files transferred grows. The number of files transferred is projected to grow from two-million to three-million plus as MOVEit is fully deployed.

Conclusion

With a large and diverse customer base, Medibank is one of the best recognized brands in Australia. It is rightly proud and protective of the position of trust it has established and of its integral role in Australia’s health system, a reputation it consistently protects through proactive adoption of innovative technologies.

The global healthcare industry is highly focused on ensuring the security and visibility of all files, particularly as more data is being transferred than ever before. Because DNA Connect implemented MOVEit so quickly, Medibank staff and business partners benefited from full visibility, auditing and compliance with Australian laws and regulations without any delay.

Australian distribution partner DNA Connect extended the reach of a traditional distributor by working on behalf of Medibank’s local IT partner O2 Networks. DNA Connect was able to get Medibank staff up and running with MOVEit two weeks after architectural design sign-off, helping to ease the cultural change by providing ad-hoc training where required and contributing to some basic quick-start instruction reference materials.

Munsoor Khan, executive director at DNA Connect added: “DNA Connect’s experience in working with Ipswitch customers for over 15 years allowed us to engage with Medibank at an advanced technical level on O2 Networks behalf. Our goal was to implement MOVEit to exceed Medibank’s compliance and service level monitoring requirements as rapidly as possible.”

The strongest evidence of the success of Medibank’s MOVEit implementation is its immediate and continued adoption by all employees. From a standing start, having no experience with dedicated managed file transfer technology at all, the entire company rapidly adopted a solution that improves security and makes daily interactions across the organization and out to business partners simple and intuitive.

Jason Atkinson concluded: “Our people use MOVEit because they understand its importance and have found it very easy to adopt and integrate into everyday processes. As a business, we have been very happy working with Ipswitch and its partner DNA Connect. We believe that we selected the right technology to meet our needs at an effective price point. Our team only has good things to say to any similar organization with comparable file transfer issues seeking an automated solution.