News that Hawaii’s largest health insurer plans to outsource some work to a company based in India (808ne.ws/1028sty) prompted numerous questions Friday. Here are responses from Sudhakar Gummadi, HMSA’s chief information security officer and privacy officer:
Question: Exactly what types of work will HMSA be outsourcing, particularly to India?
Answer: “Application development/break fixes of our claims applications. All HMSA member data is stored and secured in a U.S. data center for these operations.”
Gummadi explained in a follow-up email that software application development involves “creating a computer program or a set of programs to perform the different tasks that a business requires. Every application building process follows the same steps: gathering requirements, designing prototypes, testing, implementation, and integration. The sourcing partner will manage the application’s ongoing operations, maintenance, upgrade, patching, and user support.”
The application break-fix service “may include repairs, upgrades or installation of systems, (and) troubleshooting application software.”
Q: What safeguards are in place to protect HMSA members’ privacy and to prevent fraud? Kokua Line is hearing from HMSA members who are very concerned about their medical privacy, identity theft and cybercrime.
A: “HMSA’s governance team has conducted an extensive evaluation of our partner’s security/privacy programs to ensure they are equivalent to HMSA data safeguards.”
Q: What assurances can HMSA give that this will be safe?
A: “The kind of work which will be performed by our partner is focused on application development and maintenance of our claims applications. This is very consistent with the type of work many other health care companies have been doing for years. HMSA will continue to work with our partner to monitor all the safeguards continuously and protect our members, groups, and providers’ confidential data.”
Auwe
I am a recreational tennis player who frequents public tennis courts. While I am playing, quite often people will come to wait at the court that I occupy. These people would play loud music from their radio or mobile phone. Some don’t sit on the waiting bench but on the ground (four or five of them at a time), while the point is in play. They would walk in and out of the tennis court at will. While they are waiting they would talk real loud. Some would do stretching exercise like yoga, some even would use their racket bouncing the ball, others would do shadow tennis (like shadow boxing). Several times I asked them politely to be quiet or sit still and they would accuse me of being a control freak. All in all, it is not uncommon that they know nothing about courtesy at the tennis court. It would help if there were signs telling players to wait outside the gate of the tennis court. — A reader
Mahalo
Mahalo to the folks who fix our trash containers. I called and emailed them on a Saturday a few weeks ago to tell them one of the wheels on my container fell off. Within a few hours, someone came to my house and fixed it. On the following Monday, two days later, a worker from that division called to make sure my problem was addressed. A week later, the same wheel broke off when the truck collected our trash. So I called again, and I got a call back asking me to leave the empty container on the curbside that night, and someone would be by within three days. The next day, a worker called to inform me he would likely be there later in the day once he checked if a spare wheel was available. He showed up that afternoon, and I have a newly repaired cart. I was very impressed with the efficiency of this one part of the Department of Environmental Services. — Rob
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 500, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
