Overview
Health Share of Oregon engaged OMBU to launch My Plan, an online portal for their health plan members. This project represented the first time Health Share would provide members’ healthcare and plan information online. Top priorities of the new portal included ease of use, accessibility, security and HIPAA compliance.
OMBU Contributions
- Definition
- User experience
- Python development
- Membership data pipeline
- HIPAA conformance
- Accessibility testing
- Usability testing
The Visionary
Health Share of Oregon — one of the Coordinated Care Organizations for the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon’s Medicaid program — has over 350,000 members. Before this project, members had to rely on their physical membership ID card for their plan and provider information — Health Share did not have any online presence for a member’s plan information. In addition to convenience and access to health plan information on the go, offering an online portal increases a member’s ability to self-serve, reduces calls to customer service, and reduces the need to print physical membership ID cards when lost.
The Solution
OMBU designed and built My Plan as a microservices-based application, powered by a member portal website and a membership data pipeline.
The member portal is a responsive web application that enables members to self-register and access their plan online, including plan benefits, providers and their contact information, and a digital insurance ID card. OMBU designed the application to maximize usability. The user interface is accessible, clean, uncluttered and task-oriented, enabling members to find the information they need (to provide to doctor’s office front desk staff, or a pharmacist, for example) quickly and easily.
The website was very accessible and easy to use. For a user who has low vision or is blind this website works well using screen magnification software. Elizabeth, assistive technology tester, using OS Magnification with Chrome on Mac
The membership data pipeline allows Health Share to easily and securely maintain the portal’s membership data, in-sync with the enterprise data warehouse. At any time, Health Share staff can sync the latest membership data from the enterprise data warehouse, triggering a high-performance data pipeline built with serverless technologies that processes 350,000 memberships in approximately 90 seconds. OMBU carefully architected the pipeline to adapt to Health Share’s enterprise data processes, minimizing staff time needed to maintain the portal.
The completed implementation was audited to determine conformance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level AA success criteria, as well as HIPAA compliance. This ensures that Health Share’s diverse membership can use the portal successfully, and that their personal health information is protected.
![A collage of Health Share of Oregon member ID cards in an assortment of physical & digital mediums.]()
Digital Membership ID Card
Members no longer need to rely on physical ID cards – previously the only documentation of their health plan information. The new portal has a digital representation of the member’s physical ID card, available on the go, on any device.
Next Highlight![A diagram broadly representing a data pipeline in which Health Share member data automatically updates the content of the website.]()
Serverless Membership Data Pipeline
Staff can sync the current memberships from the enterprise data warehouse, triggering a high-performance data pipeline built with serverless technologies that processes 350,000 memberships in 90 seconds.
Next Highlight![An abstract collage of screen captures showing color contrast comparisons, postive usability test results, and lists of WCAG success criteria.]()
Accessibility Compliance
Throughout the design and development of the portal, OMBU performed rigorous accessibility audits to measure conformance with WCAG 2.1 level AA. Once the implementation was mature, OMBU partnered with Fable to engaged a diverse group of assistive technology users to evaluate the broader usability of key tasks and flows within the portal, earning praise from many of them.
Next Highlight![A diagram showing the four key areas of HIPAA compliance: access control, audit controls, integrity, and transmission security.]()
HIPAA Compliance
The portal is built to run in Amazon Web Services (AWS) using industry-leading security standards such end-to-end encryption of data in transit and at rest, granular access and audit controls, and secrets management. The completed My Plan member portal was audited to ensure HIPAA compliance.
