Login Community Support Contact us EN Platform Solutions Learn Why OutSystems Open Search Start Free Back To Customer Stories Humana Powers Digital Channels with OutSystems to Gain 4x Agility Boost 4x faster delivery 7 apps and growing 6 months saved on first app When Bruce Buttles joined Humana as Digital Channels Director in 2018, the team often struggled to deliver on time, on budget, and at the required quality. With three years prior experience with OutSystems, Bruce knew that a platform approach to app dev was the answer. Humana's digital team completed its first OutSystems project in eight weeks instead of the eight-month estimate for hand-coding. With shackles removed, the digital team has since delivered numerous solutions—four times faster, at a quarter of the cost, while over-delivering on scope and quality. Customer Experience Operational Efficiency Process Automation Web Apps & Portals Related to this Story How Humana Built Their Covid-19 Test Locator in One Month1 min Video Innovating Through Headwinds with Modular Architecture5 min Blog Post "A platform approach to app dev makes the impossible possible. Delivering four times faster while at the same time improving quality is a game-changer — making a vast range of innovations viable that were previously risk or cost-prohibitive." Bruce Buttles Digital Channels Director, Humana Challenge Our Top Three Digital Challenges? Time to Market. Period. Humana Inc, a top-five U.S. healthcare company, provides integrated care with the mission to help its millions of members achieve lifelong wellbeing. The company has a successful history in care delivery since the 1960s and health plan administration since the 1980s. "Before joining Humana, I'd spent three years as CTO of a couple of start-ups," explains Bruce Buttles, Digital Channels Director, Humana. "I'd experienced how a platform approach to application development could dramatically accelerate time to market. The exciting thing for me was to implement that same kind of approach in a huge organization like Humana." However, Humana—ranked #41 on the Fortune 500 and with over 48,000 employees—faced several challenges when it came to fast-paced digital innovation. A complex architecture—including COTS and SaaS products, on-premises legacy systems, and multiple Cloud environments—meant IT had to tread carefully, particularly given the importance of safeguarding personal health information for millions of members. “We're delivering value every one-to-two days, rather than two-weekly. On some projects, we're even struggling to write user stories fast enough to maintain a backlog—which is why I say software engineering is fun again.” Bruce Buttles Digital Channels Director, Humana "It took me six months to get my head around the complexity," says Bruce. "We were looking to drive agile projects in one to three months, but delivery estimates were often 12 to 16-months." A case in point was "Agent First Look," a sales enablement portal used by 40,000 sales agents to introduce upcoming annual health plans. "We needed to have this live in July of 2019, ahead of the fall open enrollment season," explains Bruce. "But our delivery estimate was eight months, which would push this way beyond that deadline. We needed a faster way, which provided the ideal opportunity to introduce OutSystems." Why Humana chose OutSystems: Speed-up development and improve agility Deliver web and mobile applications Enable continuous delivery Solution A Platform Approach and Co-delivery Unshackles Innovation Given the urgency of this first project, Humana formed a co-delivery team with OutSystems Professional Services. OutSystems provided a scrum team, including an architect and three developers. Humana provided product owners, a project manager, UX designers, and copywriters. Agent First Look was completed in eight weeks rather than the eight months estimated for traditional development. "There's more to this solution than meets the eye," says Bruce. "While Medicare is a federal program, we create a myriad of plans that are tailored to hundreds of regional markets. The role of Agent First Look is to simplify this complex product matrix so that each sales agent gets personalized access to the product and pricing information which applies to their territory." From a sales enablement perspective, launching Agent First Look ahead of the open enrollment season was a huge hit. At launch, Humana saw 35,000 sessions from 40,000 nationwide agents in the first hour. "Agents sell what they're confident in, and investing in their expertise also improves customer experience, so it's a win-win," says Bruce. Moreover, since federal and state health insurance regulations change annually, it's crucial to rapidly update Agent First Look in time for each year's enrollment season—which with OutSystems, the digital team now takes in its stride. The co-delivery approach has proven such a success that Humana now regularly works with OutSystems delivery partner Cloud Development Resources (CDR). Typical project delivery teams involve six to ten people—CDR provides the scrum team, and Humana provides the product manager, product owners, designers, and copywriters. “In our experience, OutSystems and our partner Cloud Development Resources helped to ensure we minimized technical debt by following best practices like the four-layer canvas architectural framework. The result—systems that perform well and are easy to enhance and maintain.” Bruce Buttles Digital Channels Director, Humana "Humana provides the what, and CDR provides the how," explains Bruce. "The split is around 60:40, which compares favorably to traditional development, which in my experience normally involves more developers and higher delivery costs." Figure 1COVID-19 Test Center Finder Test Sites 1 2 3 4 5 6 Partner Cloud Development Resources - US Cloud Development Resources is a software development and IT solutions provider that delivers OutSystems Applications Development, Software Project Development (Enterprise-grade Systems,... Learn more about Cloud Development Resources - US Results Software Engineering is Fun Again—and Four Times Faster Multiple other portals and microsites have followed, and delivery cost and effort continue to fall thanks to increasing levels of reuse. One such example is a portal called Annual Comprehensive Visit (ACV), which guides healthcare providers on promoting and executing annual wellness visits. "The beauty of how we've designed this is the speed with which we can update the guidance, as federal and state health insurance regulations change each year," says Bruce. By turning ACV into a reusable template, Humana now has an accelerator for any other portal or microsite, speeding delivery of sites such as Humana Foundation and Value-Based Care. “Now that our designers are familiar with OutSystems, in some cases they build ninety percent of the solution starting from a template, leaving just a few hours of work for more technical colleagues to finish off aspects like logic, data, and integration. That relieves pressure from hard-pressed developers.” Bruce Buttles Digital Channels Director, Humana An impactful example of the Humana digital team's newfound agility was its ability to respond lightning fast to new and urgent requirements when the COVID crisis hit, as this video explains. Finding a COVID testing center suddenly became the number-one ask for Humana's contact center. The customer service staff were struggling with a giant spreadsheet of test center details, but the information was constantly changing. The digital team had recently delivered a pharmacy finder app using OutSystems. The architecture made it easy to turn this into a multi-purpose "healthcare provider finder." The team had the head start it needed to deliver a COVID test center finder in a matter of hours. Over the course of a weekend, we built a web app that replaced the spreadsheet," explains Bruce. "Next, we expanded the app with full back-office functions, so a team of thirty users could constantly update the national testing locations database. Then working with CDR, we turned this into a mobile-friendly customer-facing app, helping members and call-center agents find test locations themselves through a Google-map-like search experience. I'd say, not too bad for only a month's work!" Speed to Market Delivered Regarding the top challenge for digital innovation at Humana, Bruce is emphatic, "Speed to market is number one, two, and three!" But with a platform approach to application development, Humana's digital innovation team is faster than ever. "Delivering four times faster while at the same time improving quality is a game-changer—making a vast range of innovations viable that were previously risk or cost-prohibitive," says Bruce. And just as importantly, Humana's digital team now has the agility to iterate at speed. "Enhancements which were an idea on Monday, can be live by Wednesday," explains Bruce. "We're delivering value every one-to-two days, rather than two-weekly. On some projects, we're even struggling to write user stories fast enough to maintain a backlog—which is why I say software engineering is fun again." Content you can’t miss ARUP Develops COVID Testing Digital Service in Four Weeks Learn why ARUP chose OutSystems to Develop its new COVID testing portal to serve corporates, sports teams, and schools across the US. Read Story Request an OutSystems Demo See first hand how your team can rapidly create and deploy critical applications that evolve with your business. Schedule your demo Webinars How to Build Your Digital Experience Portfolio Michael Facemire, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester and Bruce Buttles, Digital Channels Director at Humana will explore how you can build a digital portfolio strategy that is cross-channel, with shared data allowing you to win, serve, and retain customers. Watch Now Platform Platform Overview Demos Evaluation Guide Product Updates Start Free Pricing & Editions Why OutSystems Customer Stories Analyst Reviews Partners Success & Services Our Community OutSystems For IT Leaders Enterprise Architects Developers Solutions By Use Case Customer Experience Case Management Application Modernization Field Services Optimization Process Automation Modernize SAP Business Process Management Workplace Innovation OutSystems for ISV/MSP Solutions By Industry Insurance Banking Local Government Higher Education Healthcare More Industries Partners Overview Find a Partner Become a Partner Technology Alliance Training Partners Access Partner Center Community Community Home Forums Forge App Store Community Ideas Community Job Board Technical Support Technical Documentation Support Center Software Downloads Resources Events and Webinars Blog Resources Documentation Learn Low-Code Guide Company About OutSystems Offices and Contacts Press Careers and Culture Trust Vendor Conduct Guidelines Legal Cookie Policy EU Co-Funded Projects Modern Slavery Act Terms and Conditions GDPR at OutSystems Privacy Statement OutSystems © - All Rights Reserved First Floor, 16 Laystall Street, EC1R 4PF, London, United Kingdom More office locations English Welcome to OutSystems We use cookies to offer our visitors a better experience and personalized content. We also may share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Accept Cookies Review Settings