Chapter 14 Managing Projects 569 A Shaky Start for Healthcare.Gov CASE STUDY e administration of President Barack Obama has made Patient Protection and Affordable October 6 that Healthcare.gov\'s glitches were caused Care Act, often called \'Obamacare*, its chief by an unexpectedly high volume of users. About domestic accomplishment and the center 50,000- 60,000 had been expected, but the site had to U.S. chief technology officer Todd Park stated on piece of Obama\'s legacy. Essential to Obama\'s health handle 250,000 simultaneous users. Over 8.1 million care reform plan is Healthcare.gov, a health insurance people visited Healthcare.gov between October I and exchange Web site that facilitates the sale of private October, 2013. health insurance plans to U.S residents, assists people White House officials later eligible to sign up for Medicaid, and has a separate Healthcare.gov\'s problems were not just caused by White House officials later admitted that marketplace for small businesses high traffic volume but also by software and system design The site allows users to compare prices on health issues. Stress tests performed by insurance plans in their states, to enroll in a plan they choose, and to find out if they qualify for gow ernment health care subsidies. Users must sign up and create their own specific account first, provid- ing some personal information, in order to receive detailed information about available health care day before the launch date revealed the site slowed substantially with only 1,100 simultaneous users, far fewer than the 50,000-60,000 that were anticipated. Technical experts found out that the site was riddled with hardware and software defects, amounting to more than 600 items that needed to be fixed A major contributor to these problems was the part of the system\'s design that requires users to Healthcare.gov was launched on October 1 2013, as promised, but visitors quickly encounteredcreate individual accounts before shopping for health numerous technical problems. Software that assigned insurance. This means that before users can shop digital identities to enrollees and ensured that they for coverage, they must input personal data that only their own personal data was overwhelmed. are exchanged among separate computer systems built or run by multiple vendors, including CGI Customers encountered cryptic error messages andbuilt or run by multiple vendors, including cG could not log in to create accounts. There was insuf- ficient computing capacity in the Herndon, Virginia, data center housing the system for the site. Many users received quotes that Group, developer of healthcare.gov, Quality Software in the Herndon, Virginia, Services, and credit- checker Experian PL.C. If any Services, and part of this web of systems fails to work properly users will be blocked from entering the exchange the feature used prices based on just two age groups.marketplace. A bottleneck had been created where It was estimated that on.

1. Chapter 14 Managing Projects 569 A Shaky Start for Healthcare.Gov CASE STUDY e
administration of President Barack Obama has made Patient Protection and Affordable October 6
that Healthcare.gov's glitches were caused Care Act, often called 'Obamacare*, its chief by an
unexpectedly high volume of users. About domestic accomplishment and the center 50,000-
60,000 had been expected, but the site had to U.S. chief technology officer Todd Park stated on
piece of Obama's legacy. Essential to Obama's health handle 250,000 simultaneous users. Over
8.1 million care reform plan is Healthcare.gov, a health insurance people visited Healthcare.gov
between October I and exchange Web site that facilitates the sale of private October, 2013.
health insurance plans to U.S residents, assists people White House officials later eligible to sign
up for Medicaid, and has a separate Healthcare.gov's problems were not just caused by White
House officials later admitted that marketplace for small businesses high traffic volume but also
by software and system design The site allows users to compare prices on health issues. Stress
tests performed by insurance plans in their states, to enroll in a plan they choose, and to find out
if they qualify for gow ernment health care subsidies. Users must sign up and create their own
specific account first, provid- ing some personal information, in order to receive detailed
information about available health care day before the launch date revealed the site slowed
substantially with only 1,100 simultaneous users, far fewer than the 50,000-60,000 that were
anticipated. Technical experts found out that the site was riddled with hardware and software
defects, amounting to more than 600 items that needed to be fixed A major contributor to these
problems was the part of the system's design that requires users to Healthcare.gov was launched
on October 1 2013, as promised, but visitors quickly encounteredcreate individual accounts
before shopping for health numerous technical problems. Software that assigned insurance. This
means that before users can shop digital identities to enrollees and ensured that they for
coverage, they must input personal data that only their own personal data was overwhelmed. are
exchanged among separate computer systems built or run by multiple vendors, including CGI
Customers encountered cryptic error messages andbuilt or run by multiple vendors, including cG
could not log in to create accounts. There was insuf- ficient computing capacity in the Herndon,
Virginia, data center housing the system for the site. Many users received quotes that Group,
developer of healthcare.gov, Quality Software in the Herndon, Virginia, Services, and credit-
checker Experian PL.C. If any Services, and part of this web of systems fails to work properly
users will be blocked from entering the exchange the feature used prices based on just two age
groups.marketplace. A bottleneck had been created where It was estimated that only 1 percent of
interested consumers were able to enroll through the site for the first week of operations, and
many applications sent to insurers Thousands of enrollees for HealthCare gov-at least one in five
at the height of the problems-received these systems interacted with a software d Oracle Identity
Manager supplied by Oracle Corporation that was embedded in the government's identity-

2. checking system. Quality Software Services had subcontracted with Oracle for this part of the
system. This problem might have been averted if the system allowed users to browse plans
without first contained erroneous information Problems persisted into the third week of opera-
ollment files from the federal tions, including pull down menus that only worked health plans.
Some people were wrongly denied Insurers received enrollment files from the federal many as
one in ten. The intormation includes who is only to find that the company intermittently and
excruciatingly long wait times For some wecks in October, the site was down 60 exchange that
were incomplete or inaccurate-as what subsidies they may receive. Some percent of the time
What happened to Healthcare gov is another xample of IT project management gone awry which
often happens with large technology projects, especially those for the U.S. federal govern people
who believe they have signed up for a particular health plan, has no record of the enrollment.
Enrollment prob- ment. There was no single leader overseeing the
Solution
The rapid introduction of Information Systems in all aspects of society has left little time to
consider the impacts or develop policies to take maximum advantages of these systems. Most
organizations, including hospitals either use or a planning to implement IS in some capacity.
Based on the user data stored in database, doctors can easily analyze the status of the patient and
it was very useful to take help from other doctors by making this data available to them. Hence
lots of data has been stored in the IS of hospitals and further analyzed to know the statistics of
the hospital and it is also used to make a decision about the future plans of organization. HIS are
designed to support clinicians in accessing and working with a variety of patient information and
promoting health care quality through coordinated information sharing. The sheer volume and
variety of health information has caused problems in the delivery of patient care when using
traditional information systems.
The patient data can be sometimes shared with the policy companies and other related companies
such that revenue can be generated from these and making available of this data to others will
understand about our status.