AT&T Wins Blue Cross Contract

CHICAGO -- AT&T announced today it has won a three-year, $3.6 million contract from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association for integrated hosting and storage services. The enhanced program provides the independent, locally operated Blue Plans with an integrated, national database of all BlueCard® Program accessible providers that contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, and enhances business continuity capabilities.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is made up of 41 independent, locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies that collectively provide healthcare coverage to more than 88 million -- nearly one-in-three Americans. This contract builds on the success of an existing AT&T hosting relationship with the Association for "Blue Exchange," which allows all Blue Plans to exchange certain data with each other over a secure private network.

Under the new contract, AT&T will provide enterprise hosting and storage area networking services in its Chicagoland Internet Data Center (IDC) that enable the Association to deploy a nationwide Provider Data Repository (PDR). The enhanced, centralized online database lists contact information on all BlueCard Program accessible healthcare providers that contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, including doctors, hospitals, dentists, clinics and other healthcare facilities.

AT&T Corp.