HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CIBER, Inc. and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Health have successfully built and implemented a new automated vendor reporting system for use in the state's Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. The system was built to comply with federal legislation requiring state WIC programs to enable WIC participants to redeem program benefits in any WIC-authorized store. The legislation, titled Any Authorized Vendor (AAV), prompted WIC programs using a vendor-specific model to adapt their business processes to accommodate the change.
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The automated vendor reporting system is successfully being utilized by the PA WIC program and the 1,500 vendors who accept WIC benefits in the state. As a result of the system, Pennsylvania will realize significant cost savings estimated at more than $120,000 annually.
The PA WIC program administrators and CIBER designed, built, tested, and implemented the automated solution, which facilitates the direct interaction of the WIC program with its vendors to recognize benefit redemptions at a particular store. Before the automated solution, WIC programs required the assistance of contracted data entry specialists to associate each benefit check with the vendor that redeemed it, adding an extra layer of cost to the process. The new automated vendor reporting solution greatly reduces the need for these specialists while improving the accuracy of the vendor redemptions.
"The PA WIC AAV solution is the first of its kind nationally. WIC clients are very pleased that they can now shop at any authorized store. After seeing a demonstration of PA AAV, the USDA hopes that other state WIC programs will adopt the same method in order to realize similar cost savings for their programs," said Frank Maisano, WIC Director, Pennsylvania Department of Health.
"This project is another example of CIBER's important role in the WIC community and an example of the innovation that comes from teamwork between vendor and client," said Ed Burns, President of CIBER's State and Local Government Practice. "We once again thank our partners at the Department of Health in Pennsylvania for selecting CIBER to build this cost-effective system."
CIBER is the leader in building and implementing Web-based WIC solutions, having developed solutions for the states of Wisconsin, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Iowa. In addition, CIBER is currently building WIC systems for Massachusetts, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. CIBER-developed web-based WIC systems currently service nearly five times as many WIC participants as the next closest Web-based solution.
WIC is a national program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It is administered in 90 states, territories, or Indian Nations around the country to provide health and nutrition education, healthy food, and other services to lower income Americans with young children.
About CIBER, Inc.
CIBER, Inc. is a pure-play international system integration consultancy with superior value-priced services for both private and government sector clients. CIBER's global delivery services are offered on a project or strategic staffing basis, in both custom and enterprise resource planning (ERP) package environments, and across all technology platforms, operating systems and infrastructures. Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colo., the company now serves client businesses from over 60 U.S. offices, 22 European offices and five offices in Asia. Operating in 18 countries, with over 8,000 employees and annual revenue of nearly $1 billion, CIBER and its IT specialists continuously build and upgrade clients' systems to "competitive advantage status." CIBER is included in the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index. CIBER, ALWAYS ABLE. http://www.ciber.com/
Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
Statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, as discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CIBER undertakes neither intention nor obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. CIBER and the CIBER logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of CIBER, Inc. Copyright(C) 2007.
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