Dr. Sachin Jain who was the Chief Medical information and Innovation Officer at Merck until his departure in December, has joined an Anthem subsidiary as CMO and is scheduled to start next week.
Jain will be responsible for leading CareMore’s medical management, care delivery and clinical innovation activities, including replicating and continuously innovating the CareMore model.
CareMore has drawn attention for its team approach to healthcare for 80,000 seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs. It builds specialized programs for its highest risk patients. It uses Bluetooth connected scales to provide wireless monitoring for patients with congestive heart failure or hypertension. It does fall risk assessments in homes and replaces shag carpeting with an alternative less likely to cause accidents.
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“I am super excited,” Jain said in a phone interview. “We’re pushing the frontiers of digital health as we did at Merck.”
He explained that his new role dovetails more with his work with the federal government than Merck. He explained that it involves focusing on the second chapter of healthcare reform — scaling models and expanding them to new populations and geographies. It involves looking at how CareMore’s successes with improving healthcare management for seniors can be expanded to other patient populations.
“We have 24 care centers around the country, which I think can be learning labs for innovative health. This is an idea and we are exploring it. We don’t have to just be customers of startups, we can work in close collaboration.”
In addition to his work at Merck, Jain was a special assistant to the national coordinator for health IT and senior adviser to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He helped launch the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation — the federal agency that supports new models of payment and health care delivery.