ACC has completed stage one of its proposed $45 million IT upgrade, on time and on budget, says ACC chief executive Garry Wilson.
Pathway will replace ACC’s existing legacy system, which is becoming more costly to maintain and is not Y2K-compliant. Pathway will also support a “case-management approach” which should allow case workers to concentrate on their jobs instead of on data entry. One such feature is Pathway’s “compensation calculator” which determines a claimant’s weekly compensation.
“With 1100 rules covering compensation, automation means less effort and more accuracy,” says general manager Henry Carr. Information management should improve as Pathway generates reports on everything from the number of new cases to a particular manager’s case load.
“It will mean that we are better able to target our resources across the organisation,” says ACC chief executive Garry Wilson.
Pathway is being developed with one eye on the future. “We’ll be able to upgrade so that Pathway can receive an electronic claim or report directly from a doctor,” says Carr.
At least 8Gb of data has been migrated to the new system, with a further 16Gb still to go before Pathway is synchronised with the old legacy system. Naturally, the process is subject to extensive testing before the actual migration takes place. Stage one has cost ACC $18 million, with the total bill estimated at $25 million. The remaining $20 million will be spent on upgrading ACC’s other legacy systems.