The California Department of General Services has selected Bull Services to implement a new advanced Business Intelligence (BI) solution designed to help more efficiently manage California's $37 billion Medicaid program (known as "Medi-Cal"), and improve health care services for millions of residents. This contract will be administered by the California Department of Health Services (CDHS), which runs the Medi-Cal program. As the primary funding source for health care services provided to low-income adults and children, elderly, and disabled persons, Medi-Cal is responsible for providing the care and improving the overall health of approximately one out of every five Californians. With more than 6.6 million beneficiaries, no other Medicaid system in the nation covers as many people as Medi-Cal does. This new solution will help place California among the nation's leaders in managing medical assistance programs, and support the State's goals of achieving comprehensive health care reform, delivering high quality health care in the most cost-effective settings, emphasizing prevention and early intervention, improving health care outcomes, and uncovering and preventing fraud and abuse. The four-year, $44 million contract calls for Bull Services - the nation's leading Business Intelligence solution provider in the public sector Health and Human Services space - to provide the hardware, software, services, and consulting expertise for the Medi-Cal system. Bull Services has implemented similar solutions in Michigan, Illinois, New York, Minnesota, and Utah, which have helped these states realize more than $2 billion in combined financial benefits - many times their initial investments - and achieve breakthrough results in health care quality and outcomes. With the State of California Medi-Cal contract, Bull Services' BI solutions now help manage Medicaid programs that cover one of four Medicaid recipients in the United States (15 million of 59 million) and account for more than one of three Medicaid dollars expended nationwide ($110 billion of approximately $320 billion).* Bull Services' BI solutions have been recognized by the National Governors Association (NGA), the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO), and The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI). The new California system, known as a data warehousing Management Information System/Decision Support System (MIS/DSS) business intelligence solution, will usher in a broad level of analytical capabilities for CDHS, enabling the agency to conduct sophisticated trend analyses and predictive modeling - all designed to reduce costs and improve health services. For example: - It will give CDHS analysts the ability to access and analyze huge volumes of data in minutes, and quickly link data from disparate databases to determine patterns, probabilities, and trends within the Medi-Cal system. With this knowledge, the state can make more informed decisions about the quality, scope, and cost of health care, today and in the future. - It will offer CDHS the capability to track and monitor an individual's care and cost across overlapping programs - for example, those people who receive Medi-Cal benefits and food and cash assistance benefits. - It will also provide DHS with the capability to conduct disease management studies, better control pharmaceutical costs, and analyze how law and policy changes will impact Medi-Cal costs. - And, with the capability to rapidly link other Human Services data - Women, Infants, & Children (WIC), for example - California can use the new system to help address major health care issues, such as addressing and improving the problem of low birth-weight babies, in an integrated way. "We are extremely pleased that California has the confidence in our ability to assist the state in providing ongoing quality health care, reducing fraud and abuse, improving health outcomes, and planning for the future," said Jonathan Burbank, President and CEO of Bull Services in the U.S. "Our goal always is to provide solutions that meet the specific needs and priorities of agencies from state to state. California leads the nation in so many categories and health care is no different. The California Department of Health Services has a visionary approach to using technology to help address public policy issues, and we're proud to work with the agency in this endeavor."