Goold Health Systems (GHS) is rolling out its core processing application on the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database platform. The rollout began after successfully completing an in-depth proof-of-concept (POC) project. Headquartered in Augusta, Maine, GHS is a healthcare management company that specializes in providing pharmacy benefit services, clinical services and business process outsourcing services to State Medicaid agencies, non-profit clients and private sector clients.

A global leader in software for connected healthcare, InterSystems develops innovative database, integration, and business intelligence products. Known worldwide as a highly scalable object database for transactional systems, CACHÉ handles SQL queries rapidly and enables rapid web application development.

Migrating to CACHÉ was the result of an IT strategy based on the long-term future of GHS. "As we looked to the future, we realized that the legacy platform on which we run our software would not serve our mid-term and long-term strategic IT vision," says Jason Skeffington, director, MIS. "On the back-end, for example, we had growing demands for more robust disaster recovery and scalability. It was clear that the legacy platform could not fulfill our expanding requirements," he said. "We considered virtually every possible alternative, including outsourcing our development and evaluating shrink-wrapped applications, as well as new database platforms for our core processor," he continues. Once the decision was made to stay with GHS' own software running on a MultiValue environment, the next step called for in-depth evaluation and comparison of multiple DBMS platforms.

"We designed and implemented a very careful and rigorous POC to test product capabilities and limits and CACHÉ immediately stood out from the competition," according to Skeffington. "The company is delivering technology innovations that their competitors haven't even thought about yet. And CACHÉ has made it possible to move to an object database environment without having to rewrite our MultiValue applications." The fact that development can be done with either a relational or an object-oriented approach offers flexibility that is key to the healthcare management company's future plans, Skeffington adds.

GHS' first CACHÉ-based implementation was the result of a contract for a state Medicaid Pharmacy Project in Wyoming. "The algorithms for this project are more consistently complex than many we've had to write. Even with that level of complexity, the performance of CACHÉ has been outstanding." The system went live and the customer is completely satisfied with the system speed and performance, according to Skeffington, who says that GHS is now migrating other pharmacy customer systems to the CACHÉ platform on an aggressive schedule.

"It's great to have the opportunity to partner with GHS as they move to a database that supports their leadership position in the specialized and complex Medicaid management segment of the healthcare technology industry," states Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems vice president of strategic planning. "We are committed to providing the rich features, high performance and enterprise scalability they require for ongoing growth in this intensely competitive market sector."

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