NorthWinds News Breakthroughs and Bold Moves

NorthWinds News Breakthroughs and Bold Moves

Vol.2, No. 1

Our Valued Partners: Growing and Succeeding Together We’re proud to collaborate with an incredible network of clients. Your trust and partnership drive our innovation, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to support your success.

Delta Dental of Colorado Delta Dental of Illinois Delta Dental of Kansas TruAssure Delta Dental of Virginia Delta Dental of Wisconsin Wyssta Services

Thank you for being part of our journey!

Strengthening our Foundation for Future Growth In 2024, we successfully completed a large-scale reorganization, marking a critical step in our transformation into an enterprise-scale technology product and services organization.

This shift was designed to streamline processes, enhance efficiencies, and deliver more innovative solutions tailored to your needs. With a stronger operational structure, we are better positioned to provide you with superior services and improved outcomes—reinforcing our commitment to excellence.

As part of this evolution, we transitioned the governance from our Owner companies from the Strategic Alignment Committee (STAC) to a new model built around Strategists, Builders, Savers, and Connectors.

This dynamic framework ensures more agile decision-making and execution, ultimately benefiting the solutions and services we provide to you.

Additionally, we successfully registered our NorthWinds trademark, securing our brand identity and strengthening our market position. This milestone protects the quality and innovation you expect from us while laying the groundwork for long-term growth and continued success.

With these advancements, we remain focused on delivering the best possible outcomes for you—now and in the future.

Rob Sanchez, President

Driving the Future: Smarter Data, Stronger Security, and Seamless Experiences We’re making things better, faster, and more cost-effective for you! By streamlining systems and removing outdated tools like Vlocity, we’ve saved more than $1 million collectively for Wyssta Services and Delta Dental of Wisconsin (DDWI)—savings that translate to more efficient and effective services for you.

With the completion of DDWI’s Marketing Cloud Phase Two, expect enhanced email, SMS, and portal interactions. And our updated Identify Management API strengthens login security, ensuring safer engagements and improved sync functionality.

We’ve optimized reporting and Qlik performance to ensure timely insights, with data loads now finishing before 8 a.m. EST- making data access and analysis faster and more reliable for you.

Looking ahead, our partnership with Delta Dental Plans Association (DDPA) as the lead development partner on the new DDPA National Data Warehouse means more advanced data solutions tailored to your needs.

This collaboration keeps us ahead of the curve while reinforcing our position as a technology leader across Delta Dental Member Companies (DDMCs).

We’ve also taken data management to the next level by implementing Data Integrity Checks and Intelligent Scheduling, along with automated processes like the data ingestion framework for loading HealthEdge data tables into Snowflake for all tenants.

Additionally, the launch of the DDWA Digital Platform Sales Portal and Wyssta Service Cloud AP, ensures you enjoy a smoother and more seamless experience across platforms.

BI and Salesforce Reporting Solutions Corporate Systems Data Advantech Warehouse

Corporate Systems- Jason Keup, VP

Raising the Bar: Security, Support, and Service Excellence

We’re committed to keeping your systems secure and reliable. This year, we successfully passed all audits, reinforcing our dedication to compliance and security best practices.

To better support you, we launched our System Reliability Team who efficiently manages our Keyspring clients’ daily support needs, ensuring timely and effective service. One significant success of the team is the 33.66% reduction in Keyspring’s production backlog, improving operational efficiency and streamlining your experience.

Thanks to our strong partnership and shared efforts, we successfully minimized the impact of the Change HealthCare ecosystem outage on your customers. We’re proud to have worked alongside you to ensure continuity and support.

Your satisfaction remains our top priority. We continue to receive high ratings for day-to-day technology support, proving our unwavering dedication to exceptional service.

And, with a strong 98.9% SLA achievement, you can count on us for reliability and success!

IT Services and Security- Jeff Lutgen, Senior, VP

Keyspring Evolution: Optimizing Development, Reducing Bugs, and Planning Big for the Future!

In 2024 and early 2025, we transformed our product development approach by redesigning our Engineering Teams to an optimal size and skill mix, ultimately improving throughput and productivity. Our new Product Management Team and additional Product Owners now work more closely with you to develop plans and deliver enhancements. By incorporating your feedback, we ensure new features provide real value to benefit everyone.

To make enhancements more efficient, we introduced a simpler, more streamlined prioritization and preparation process at the end of 2024, with implementation in early 2025. Initial feedback and data confirm this approach is running smoothly, improving efficiency for you.

We’ve also worked with HealthEdge to aggressively reduce the backlog of bugs and lower the rate of new bug creation. With these improvements, you can expect a more seamless experience when the 25.1 release goes live soon.

Looking ahead, we’re excited about what’s coming in 2025—including a new Optum-strategic partnership, working closely with DDCO as the Epic Sponsor.

This effort includes more options for paperless Provider Payments and significant costsaving opportunities.

Notable 2024 Roadmap Items Product- Kirk Averett, VP

Smooth Transitions and Milestone Achievements: Success for DDKS and MYT

The Delta Dental of Kansas (DDKS) team achieved a major milestone in early September, thanks to the collaborative efforts of multiple teams across the organization. The Data Migration team set the project ahead of schedule by more than 36 hours, successfully transferring more than three million pieces of data. With support from an onsite NorthWinds team, we cleared claims and eligibility backlogs, completed configuration updates, and ensured all eligibility and claims files were up to date just two days after Go-Live.

This dedication positioned us to reach pre-Go-Live levels for call volume and claims by the end of 2024.

At the same time, the Multi-Year Transition (MYT) Lockstep plan made critical progress for Delta Dental of Illinois (DDIL), Delta Dental of Wisconsin (DDWI), and Wyssta Services. This effort covered key implementation steps, including Discovery, Training for subject matter experts, Configuration, and Data Migration, achieving more than 95% of our set goals. All three clients successfully loaded broker/broker agent data, provider data, and account data, marking a significant achievement.

Meanwhile, our new Technical Implementation Teams made progress by setting up the stage environment for DDIL, bringing them closer to User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Mock Production.

Let’s keep cheering on the DDIL team as they continue to push forward!

Implementation- Amy Bayse, VP

Powering Efficiency and Amplifying Impact for a Stronger NorthWinds In 2024, as part of a corporate wide reorg, we formed the Enterprise Services Division to streamline key business functions.

This division now oversees essential operations spanning the entire organization, including finance and human resources, as well as activities that represent the organization, like marketing and communications.

By adopting a shared services approach, we’ve unified finance, HR, legal, and compliance/audit functions with Delta Dental Owners, reducing complexity and improving collaboration.

To further optimize work processes, we introduced a new role to the organization: the Work Systems Manager (WSM). These managers are dedicated to refining processes, driving efficiency, and ensuring seamless operations across NorthWinds.

Our goal is simple: to strengthen NorthWinds’ overall operations so we can serve you more effectively while also creating a better workplace for our employees.

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Enterprise Services- Randy Ruplinger, VP

Real People Doing Real Work Making a Real Difference

The NorthWinds Way - 33 Fundamentals forming the foundation for who we are as a company.

CultureWise is one of the tools to help us build that foundation by recognizing, reinforcing and living out these fundamentals. In November, we recognized our Culture All Starsincluding 14 Platinum, 12 Gold,, 22 Silver and 25 Bronze badges earned.

The NorthWinds Way is who we are as a company and what you can expect from us.

1. Deliver Legendary Service

2. Get Clear on Expectations

3. Listen to Understand

4. Assume Positive Intent

5. Embrace Diverse Perspectives

6. Be Curious

7. Own Your Work-Life Balance

8. Be a Lifelong Learner

9. Do the Right Thing Always

10. Debate, then Commit.

11. Speak Straight

12. Walk In Your Customers’ Shoes

13. Look Ahead and Anticipate

14. Collaborate

15. Be Easy to Work With

16. Make Quality Personal

17. Honor Commitments

18. Communicate To Be Understood

19. When in Doubt, Communicate Personally

20. Have A Bias For Action

21. Take Intelligent Risks

22. Lead By Example

23. Practice Blameless Problem-Solving

24. Pitch In Wherever Necessary

25. Invest In Relationships

26. Fix Problems At The Source

27. Reduce or Eliminate Waste

28. Make A Difference

29. Be Vigilant About Confidentiality

30. Deliver Results

31. Show Meaningful Appreciation

32. Be Relentless About Improvement.

33. Keep Things Fun

Living Our Fundamentals

NorthWinders Making an Impact: Giving, Volunteering and Inspiring Change In 2024, NorthWinders united to make a meaningful difference through the United Way Campaign, donating more than $47,000 to support essential programs and services that promote education, financial stability, and health for individuals and families in need.

Their commitment extended beyond financial contributions, as they dedicated 708 volunteer hours—a remarkable 39.6% increase from 2023—to community projects, mentorship programs, and outreach activities.

Through their generosity and passion, NorthWinders continue to demonstrate the power of collective action in creating lasting, positive change.

We’re excited for what’s to come as we continue to grow, innovate and serve you each day.