A new era of care, cloud, CX: Q&A with Highmark Health’s Karen Hanlon

When Highmark Health began building its Living Health strategy in 2020, the vision was to deliver members a new healthcare experience unlike anything previously available. Now, the payer-provider has created the My Highmark app and web presence to add digital experiences to Living Health. 

Highmark Health built and deployed My Highmark with League and Google Cloud to establish the care, cloud and CX trifecta less than a year after the three companies began working together.  

“The concept of care, cloud and CX is spot on,” said Karen Hanlon, EVP and COO, Highmark Health. “It’s not just healthcare expertise that will get this done, it’s not just having the data and advanced analytics — it’s how you combine all of the components.”

I interviewed Hanlon about how working with League and Google Cloud equipped Highmark Health with the platform to quickly bring My Highmark to market and reduce the risk of long-term technology deployments by accelerating time-to-value, the necessity of applying out-of-industry consumer engagement practices to healthcare and what the future holds for My Highmark and Living Health.

Q: Let’s begin with Living Health, Highmark Health’s vision to transform member experiences that has led to My Highmark. What was the inspiration fueling Living Health?

A: Living Health is about making the healthcare experience simpler and more personalized. By doing so, we hope to improve member engagement and enable people to be more proactive in taking care of themselves to improve their health outcomes. Digital transformation is a big part of Living Health. The collaboration with Google Cloud and League harnesses the power they have in advanced analytics and CX to build an experience into the My Highmark app and web presence that engages consumers to participate in furthering their health objectives.

Q: With that partnership, Highmark Health transitioned data to Google Cloud and now League brings the CX layer to enable My Highmark. How does that advance Living Health?

A: The work with League is the next step in our Living Health journey to bring a real consumer experience to healthcare. My Highmark is the digital member experience at the core of Living Health. We expect My Highmark will enable care that is far more personalized so it becomes easier for members to access and engage in care in a way that is intuitive rather than burdensome. 

We are offering members virtual appointment scheduling, virtual solutions around chronic health conditions, virtual primary and urgent care and administrative solutions to understand how to use their health insurance all through one single sign-on experience. They don’t have to go to multiple places to get what they need so it eliminates some of the fragmentation people experience in the healthcare system today — and we believe it’s one of the first tools to market that really accomplishes that.

Q: Why did Highmark Health choose League as a CX partner?

A: League has been the ideal partner for us to work with because of the company’s expertise in consumer experience and healthcare. As a payer-provider, we know we can’t transform healthcare alone. We have great healthcare knowledge, but it requires out-of-industry expertise around the consumer experience to truly engage people in their healthcare.

The strategic partnership with League is critically important because League brings an understanding of the healthcare consumer experience that is essential for promoting engagement on behalf of the individuals we serve. We know that engagement is a critical part of driving better health outcomes and ultimately reducing the cost of care. League brought expertise associated with how to get people to adopt and utilize those tools that we would not have been able to build by ourselves, or certainly not in the timeframe that we talk about achieving speed-to-value.

Q: What are the initial results of Highmark Health’s strategic partnership with League and Google Cloud?

A: Healthcare has been slow to adopt some of the customer innovation that we’ve seen in other industries, and League brought that to us in a manner that was far faster than we could have built on our own. Frankly, when I think about developing this solution, we were able to do it in conjunction with League in a way that achieved speed-to-value very fast and, therefore, reduced the risks associated with technology development. So it’s been a great experience for us.

Q: Speaking of the modular platform, what is next for Highmark Health?

A: We truly believe that the only way to really drive toward better health outcomes and eliminate some of the waste in healthcare is to improve customer engagement and the relationships consumers have with the clinicians who support them. Without strong engagement, we will not be able to attack healthier outcomes on a long-term basis. So we expect to continually enhance that customer journey — whether it’s through adding capabilities to the My Highmark platform or promoting greater adoption of the tools we will continue to rollout in 2023 and beyond.

The future of Living Health is about making sure we round out the information chain and deliver clinicians the information they need to better care for their patients, our members. 

My Highmark is developed in a way that enables us to leverage all the best that League brings to the table and also to build in very personalized health experiences that are unique to Highmark members, or unique capabilities we want to offer on behalf of our customers — it’s just a great tool for us to use.