Covered California Secures CalHEERS Platform and Customer Health Data with Google Security Operations

Google Public Sector and Deloitte deliver a full stack security operations center for Covered California's CalHEERS health benefits marketplace to detect and thwart more cyberthreats quicker.

WASHINGTON and SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Covered California, California's health insurance marketplace, announced today that it has partnered with Deloitte and Google Public Sector to deploy Google Security Operations to secure CalHEERS, the State of California's health benefits exchange system. By leveraging Google Security Operations, CalHEERS is able to better protect the personal health information (PHI) and personal identifiable information (PII) of Covered California's thousands of members.

"Cybersecurity is a top priority for Covered California, and we are committed to ensuring the security and integrity of our CalHEERS system and our consumers' personal information," said Kevin Cornish, Chief Information Officer at Covered California. "Google Security Operations, combined with Deloitte's expertise, has provided us with the tools and capabilities we need to effectively navigate the complex cyber landscape and safeguard our multi-cloud environment."

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 stipulates that all states must offer residents a Health Benefits Exchange – a central resource for exploring and purchasing health insurance. CalHEERS consolidates the resources where millions of Californians and small businesses can research, compare, check eligibility, and purchase health coverage.

By leveraging Google Security Operations for CalHEERS, Covered California is gaining access to a comprehensive suite of tools and technologies that can help protect its sensitive data and systems. These include advanced threat detection, incident response, and security analytics capabilities. With built-in Gemini AI capabilities, Google Security Operations can help build and run threat searches, summarize the results, and suggest incident remediation. This drastically reduces time to action and unlocks data-driven decisions to serve the community faster.

"We're excited to continue to partner with Covered California to help the organization protect its members' data," said Brent Mitchell, Vice President, Go-to-Market, Google Public Sector. "Google Security Operations offers a powerful and scalable solution that can help government agencies like Covered California stay ahead of the evolving and accelerating threat landscape."

Google Security Operations provides a full stack security operations center, which helps the CalHEERS team detect, identify, and thwart cybersecurity threats faster than before. Since partnering with Deloitte and deploying Google Security Operations in June of this year, Covered California has seen higher levels of threat intelligence, faster and more efficient resolution, and greater focus on relevant threats.

"We are proud to support Covered California in its mission to provide affordable, high-quality healthcare coverage to Californians while safeguarding the user data and underlying infrastructure of the health insurance exchange," said Kunal Shah, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "Our collaboration with Google Cloud has enabled us to deliver a solution that meets California's unique needs, helps it stay ahead of evolving cyberthreats, and maintains compliance with state and federal regulations."

In April of 2024, Covered California announced that it is using Google Cloud's AI solution, Document AI, to help streamline the organization's efforts to provide California residents with affordable, quality health insurance. To learn more about Covered California's mission to ensure Californians have access to high-quality, affordable insurance, please visit www.CoveredCA.com.

About Covered California
Covered California is the state's health insurance marketplace, where Californians can find affordable, high-quality insurance from top insurance companies. Covered California is the only place where individuals who qualify can get financial assistance on a sliding scale to reduce premium costs. Consumers can then compare health insurance plans and choose the plan that works best for their health needs and budget. Depending on their income, some consumers may qualify for the low-cost or no-cost Medi-Cal program.

Covered California is an independent part of the state government whose job is to make the health insurance marketplace work for California's consumers. It is overseen by a five-member board appointed by the governor and the Legislature. For more information about Covered California, please visit www.CoveredCA.com.

About Google Cloud
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

SOURCE Google Cloud