Upp Technology Helps Blue Cross Blue Shield Achieve Compliance for a Secure Future

Client Profile:

An independent licensee of the national Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield North Dakota is a leading provider in the health insurance industry, and the largest healthcare provider in North Dakota, insuring more than 350,000 residents and over 75,000 non-residents. The company is a multi-year recipient of BCBSA’s National Brand Excellence Award for superior customer service.

To help BCBS North Dakota improve their outstanding quality and service, and achieve the latest government and industry mandates, BCBS North Dakota has turned to Upp Technology project based and staff augmentation services for subject matter expertise in security & compliance and project management.

Solution:

Upp Technology has been assisting BCBS North Dakota with IT auditing and hardening efforts, in accordance with SOX relevant corporate governance and financials controls as well as HIPAA for compliant electronic data interchange, security and privacy of protected healthcare information, and other such standards including DISA STIGs security implementation guidelines, FIPS processing standards, NIST, ITIL/ ITSM and other best practices.

Charged with ensuring more than 20 security implementations meet or exceed the guidelines and are completed according to an aggressive schedule, Upp Technology project management has been responsible for developing strategic roadmaps and plans and building a PMO, including strategic and tactical approaches for success, enterprise resource planning, processes and procedures, disaster recovery and business continuity planning, developing reusable forms and templates, and more.

Simultaneously, the Upp Technology infrastructure team has augmented BCBS North Dakota’s internal staff, assisting with IT auditing, systems security, administration and hardening. The team has brought 112 RedHat Enterprise SuSE Linux Enterprise servers in compliance with STIG requirements and developed DR plans per STIGs and HIPAA, including scripting for maximum automation, and process documentation and training for repeatability and continued compliance checking.

Working in concert with BCBS North Dakota, Upp Technology has built, installed and tested Linux as well as Windows, UNIX and Novell servers, restructured the firewall infrastructure, installed PKI for FIPS, implemented remote access with SecureID, configured and tested new router & switching systems, and assisted in the design and implementation of a secure n-tier architecture for development.

Business Value:

With Upp Technology technologists providing infrastructure support services to achieve security and compliance on time and budget, and project managers charting a course for continuous process improvement in project management, project delivery and service management, BCBS North Dakota has been able to improve upon their award winning status as North Dakota’s leading healthcare provider.