With one of the largest content management systems ever built, the Social Security Administration is reaping the rewards of migrating to a paperless office.
In 2006, SSA will complete the rollout of an $800 million all-digital system – known as eDIB, for Electronic Disability System – to process disability claims at nearly 1,500 locations nationwide. SSA says eDIB will save more than $1.3 billion when compared with the cost of creating, mailing and storing paper folders. Once eDIB is fully deployed, SSA hopes to slash 100 days out of the average time it takes to process a disability claim – a claim took as long as three years before the eDIB deployment.
The goal of eDIB is to speed disability claims processing by reducing delays in creating, transporting and locating paper files. The new system aims to provide a secure, centralized Web-based repository of medical and other documents associated with disability claims. SSA and state agency employees process these claims using a customized desktop environment.
“We will spend $800 million over seven years ending in 2009,” says William Gray, SSA’s deputy commissioner for systems. “Our return on investment will be $1.3 billion by 2011. The costs of this system are front-loaded, but the benefits increase as you go into the out years and beyond.”
The eDIB repository is adding 32 million documents each year, which takes 7T bytes of data storage space. In addition, the repository will house audio and video transcripts from disability claims hearings that will occupy an estimated 45T bytes of digital storage media annually.
The system will have 65,000 users, including 10,400 concurrent users. The users come from SSA’s 1,477 offices and 135 hearing offices that hear appeals on disability claims. Each state and territory in the U.S. has its own office for determining disability claims for SSA, and these offices are linked into eDIB, too.
“This is the biggest Web content management system in the world that we’ve seen in terms of the number of users and the wide variety of users,” says Jon Prial, IBM’s vice president of content management.
SSA handles more than 2 million disability claims each year, and until now this process was all on paper.
To file a disability claim, an employee would go to one of SSA’s 1,300 field offices nationwide, fill out an application form and submit medical data in support of the claim. SSA would send a paper folder to the appropriate state office, which would arrange for a doctor to review it. The state would make a determination on the claim and then mail the folder back to the closest SSA field office. Employees denied disability claims could file for a hearing at one of SSA’s hearing offices. After the legal proceedings were done, the disability folder often would be several inches thick.
“There were many things wrong with this process,” Gray says. “It was extremely labor-intensive and paper-intensive, and an enormous amount of time was lost in the process. Only the person that had the paper folder could do any work. There was lots of time lost with people finding, managing and mailing these folders.”
Some disabled employees waited more than three years to get a final determination on a claim.
“The old system was very costly and inefficient. It was also providing poor service to the public,” Gray says. “Our desire was to move to an electronic process that would be much more efficient.”
With the eDIB system, employees can file claims over the Internet directly or with the help of SSA staff at one of its offices. The employee’s entire folder has been moved to an electronic file, and all information from doctors is scanned, faxed or e-mailed into that file. State offices make determinations about disability claims and the hearing officers who handle appeals can access the file from a Web-based repository.
“No one ever has to handle that paper,” Gray says. “All appeals are handled electronically. At the hearing offices, we have a new case-processing system, as well as the online files. We’ve had many hearings where the whole hearing is handled electronically, with the judge and attorneys at terminals. We’re even recording hearings in digital media and filing them in the electronic folder.”
An array of IBM technology is making eDIB possible. The central repository at SSA’s National Computer Center is housed on IBM’s Z Series mainframes; eDIB uses IBM’s Content Manager software for repository management, IBM’s DB2 Content Manager for database access, and IBM’s DB2 Records Manager and DB2 for databases. The applications were developed in IBM’s WebSphere software. IBM’s Tivoli software provides secure access to eDIB.
“For many years, IBM talked a lot about being an e-business and leveraging Internet technologies that allow people to transform their businesses,” Prial says. “We’ve been focused on information-on-demand – not just having the information infrastructure in place but getting the business process benefits, too. SSA is a perfect role model for that.”
The main eDIB repository is backed up and mirrored by Sun Solaris servers at the administration’s seven largest state offices. Another partner in the eDIB development effort is Lockheed Martin, which helped integrate and customize the IBM software.
The eDIB system rides over a dual-source MPLS backbone that features two T-1 links from different carriers coming out of each of its 1,300 field offices.
Non-stop data management
“The robustness of the content management system led to a very stable system,” Gray says. “Our system is up 99.10% of the time. The pieces that fail are often a fax machine in an SSA field office. That performance has exceeded my expectations.”
The eDIB system will be deployed in all of SSA’s field offices, hearing offices and state offices by year-end.
“In January, we certified the first state that no longer had to keep a paper folder as backup, and that was Mississippi. We’ve also certified Illinois and Hawaii,” Gray says. “By the end of 2006, all states will be working in a completely paperless environment.”
SSA has received 250,000 applications for disability claims over the Internet, and another 9 million applications were filed electronically to eDIB from one of its field offices. SSA has more than 1,500 doctors, hospitals and other medical offices sending information electronically into the secure eDIB repository.
SSA tried 10 years ago to build a paperless system but it failed because the technology wasn’t stable enough, and there was less focus then on business process re-engineering.
“The technology itself has improved,” Gray says. “When we tried to do this in the early 1990s, we were relying on client/server technology. There were so many moving parts, and you had to download so much into the individual workstation that it was very difficult. Right now, we’re running this off our mainframes, and we are using Internet and intranet services to accomplish this.”
