Payers

CONVERGE: IBX exec boosts healthcare innovation, Philadelphia

Daniel J. Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross, is a fan of Philadelphia and a fan of Thomas Edison. He sees parallels between the work Edison did on the lightbulb and the way healthcare innovators are trying to disrupt their industry.

 

Daniel J. Hilferty, president and CEO of Independence Blue Cross, is a fan of Philadelphia and a fan of Thomas Edison.

In kicking off MedCity CONVERGE Wednesday morning in the City of Brotherly Love, Hilferty gave some love to his town while also acknowledging a serious problem here. The opening keynote speaker at CONVERGE noted that healthcare costs in the Philadelphia area are 42 percent higher than the national average, presenting an opportunity for innovators to shine.

“Come to Philadelphia. Help us figure it out,” Hilferty said.

While other payers are consolidating — notably the pending megamergers of Aetna and Humana and of Anthem and Philadelphia-based Cigna — Independence is looking for efficiencies without having to merge. “How do we achieve that? Healthcare innovation,” Hilferty said.

He expects Philadelphia to become a hub for that. “We’ve been talking about Philadelphia … becoming the Silicon Valley of healthcare innovation,” Hilferty said.

He just wrapped up a month-long working beach vacation in nearby New Jersey and noticed that even the Garden State was developing a wine industry. Hilferty recalled conversations with locals, who said that the mid-Atlantic region was at approximately the same latitude as Sonoma, California, and Bordeaux, France, so it may only be a matter of time until winemaking near the Jersey shore catches up to those legendary areas.

That may be wishful thinking, perhaps, but with the problems healthcare faces, perhaps a bold strategy is in order. That strategy involves dissemination of innovations, much like Edison did right there in New Jersey.

“Our vision starts with the lightbulb,” Hilferty said, prop in hand, and noted that the bulb Edison created was rather useless to the mass market without consumer demand and an electrical network to power the lightbulbs. “Who do you need to connect with?” Hilferty asked. Edison helped piece together a network and convince people they needed electric lighting in their homes.

“Edison did not just invent the lightbulb. He changed the world,” Hilferty noted. “He was an innovator who happened to be an inventor.”

Hilferty wants his company to be seen in the same, ahem, light. “Independence is an innovation company that happens to be in healthcare,” he said.

“There’s not much difference between Thomas Edison and what you are doing in healthcare innovation,” Hilferty told this gathering of digital health innovators, clinical leaders and potential investors.

Hilferty said that care can only be revolutionized via partnership and technology. “By doing this, we’re changing the way healthcare is conceived, developed and delivered,” he said. Innovation will not work unless people know how to use it and they trust it.

Photo: Independence Blue Cross

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