Coach of the Quarter – Rajakumar Durgajayaraj

Rajakumar Durgajayaraj, a Senior Developer, has immense knowledge of Java and the business domain, which is recognizable to his department. He's helped his team members understand the issues at hand, and he works with them closely to make sure that any issues are resolved. In team meetings, Rajakumar's suggestions and ideas are invaluable. For Outpatient PriorAuth (OPA), he helped the team divide the massive project into smaller chunks so that the work could be accomplished effectively. Rajakumar also helped to introduce JQuery to the Cognitive Medical Review System (CMRS) team and it was later carried out to other teams in eCommerce.

Rajakumar makes sure that new team members are welcomed and helps them to understand the project from both the technical and business perspective, and he works closely with them to make sure that they have access to all required systems. Last year, the Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) Post Pay Automation project, which he played a major role in, won the Process Improvement of the Year. Rajakumar helped to direct and support other developers and testers ensuring this project was a huge success.

Team of the Quarter – PalmettoGBA.com Website Redesign Team

The PalmettoGBA.com Website Redesign Team delivered on a major Customer Experience project that, upon its release, immediately started generating positive feedback from Medicare providers. Over two years, this team worked to upgrade the design of ten Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) websites, implemented a New to Medicare site, and transitioned Palmetto GBA’s publishing platform to a new Web Content Manager (WCM). This team took a user-centric approach for the redesign, relying on user feedback and other techniques. They collaborated with Provider Outreach and Education (POE) throughout the effort to monitor progress and get iterative feedback. This team is on the front lines of Palmetto GBA’s focus on Customer Experience, and their success is a result of exemplary teamwork.

Team members:
Scott Burkholder, Gerald Eichelberger, Arvind Gunda, Carol Harper, Steven Hester, Chris James, Marlowe Leverette, Katie McLean, Derek Roberts, and David Russell.

Process Improvement of the Quarter – DevOps: Auto Deployment Process

The WebApps Team are pioneers in adopting new technologies, such as DevOps, which is a set of principles and practices that help organizations deploy better software faster using shared tools for automating and collaborating in the software delivery process, from initial development to fully operational. Palmetto GBA began working with our corporate IT partners to implement a DevOps pipeline in 2020, and the eCommerce Webport Apps team has led the way in onboarding onto this pipeline. This process improvement represents the culmination of a year of tremendous effort as Palmetto GBA adopted numerous automation components of the pipeline. Highlighted in this improvement is its impact on the deployment of code. A process that used to take up to an hour to complete now takes 5 minutes per deployment and has resulted in significant cost savings.

Team members:
Venu Gopal Boppa, Vishnu Vardhan Reddy Boochireddy, Yunus Chhipa, Vishvada Ganapati Carol Harper, Stephanie Lesesne, Preeti Pal, Satish Palakurthi, Sushma Sikhakolli, Jonathan Tamasco, Melissa C. Thompson, SanthoshKumar Thota, and Ramya Smitha Vaddempudi.

Contractor Team members (special mention):
Sherri Hunter, Amukta Jambula, Meghana Koleti, and Harshitha Rangineni

Associates of the Quarter – David Russell

David Russell, a Developer IV, has been a critical member of the eCommerce web team, and his expertise and leadership have always been counted on as his responsibilities impact multiple contracts. Several years ago, David had a vision of a more robust, but streamlined, web content management system (WCM). In his spare time, he put this vision into code, and the result is now formally recognized as WCM3. WCM3 gives Palmetto GBA a modular web platform that vastly reduces the time to create new sites, it incorporates the new approval workflow defined by Palmetto GBA’s Lean Six Sigma team, and gives users the capability to customize sites to better suit their needs. This achievement is one example of how David goes above and beyond to improve Palmetto GBA.