'Healthways offers a menu of services, and we needed a modular, 'plug-and-play' architecture in which we could easily turn capabilities on and off to meet each health plan sponsors' criteria,' said David Jarmoluk, director of enterprise architecture for Healthways, a leading provider of comprehensive health and care support solutions, as IBM announced yesterday that - with its help and that of its business partner Mainsoft - Healthways has crossed the .NET-Java EE software standards divide to deploy a multimillion patient health and wellness portal.

Thanks to Mainsoft's .NET Extensions, IBM WebSphere Portal has become the first to incorporate .NET and Java equally, helping developers build usable intranets or extranets with Web services or electronic forms, regardless of whether a company has invested in open standards, proprietary software formats or both.

"WebSphere Portal makes it easy to integrate existing software assets, Web 2.0, and SOA features and now with Mainsoft's .NET Extensions, customers can easily leverage any existing .NET development skills and applications," said Larry Bowden, IBM's vice president of portals and web interaction services. 

"Now with Mainsoft's .NET Extensions, customers can easily leverage any existing .NET development skills and applications," Bowden added.

Jarmoluk explaineed that Healthways knew it needed a portal solution simply because an enterprise portal makes the most sense for how it did business. "We also wanted to avoid the cost and time it would normally require to build new security and branding every time we brought on a new customer," he said.

"We chose IBM's portal for Healthways' eFulfillment site," Jarmoluk continued, "because we could deliver a highly scalable, personalized experience in a proven production environment. And with .NET Extensions, the development experience was highly intuitive."

"Our C# developers were developing Java portlets on day one of a two-day training with Mainsoft consultants. As a result, the eFulfillment site went into production only five months after we started development work. We estimate that the site will pay for itself in reduced mailing and administrative costs within a year and better serve our members," said Jarmoluk.

Healthways' C# development team used Mainsoft's Visual Studio-based software development kit, called .NET Extensions for WebSphere Portal, to develop and deploy dozens of C# applications and components natively on WebSphere Portal, without having to rewrite their .NET applications in Java. Healthways' in-house team worked in conjunction with Java consultants from Ascendant Technology and with Mainsoft consultants.

The self-service site gives Healthways' members the ability to easily download personalized documentation designed to promote wellness among healthy individuals; slow the progressions of disease associated with family or lifestyle risk factors; and promote the best possible health for those already affected by disease. Using WebSphere Portal and Mainsoft software, Healthways completed a security-rich electronic fulfillment site, with personalization based on the members' plans and individual health needs.

The portal is designed to scale to serve Healthways' current 27 million members and beyond.