Highmark Health, Google Cloud and League announced a collaboration Tuesday that forms a new digital health platform for Highmark Health’s members.
The companies made the announcement at a press meeting during the HLTH conference in Las Vegas.
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The new platform is a “digital front door” for members, offered on the web and through the My Highmark app. It will help members with scheduling appointments, accessing primary care and urgent care, managing prescription drugs and other services. It will roll out in January.
“They can come to one place to service their healthcare needs … It’s very different than the way that healthcare works for most customers today,” said Karen Hanlon, executive vice president and COO of Highmark Health, at the meeting. “We probably have many of those apps on our phones. You have to go to one for this, one for that, a different one for scheduling an appointment, and then you have to pick up the phone and do something. We’re really trying to make it easy for our customers to be able to engage.”
The companies will also continue to add services to the platform as time goes on, Hanlon added.
“We will continue quarter after quarter to make that experience better and better and add other aspects to it,” she said.
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The platform builds on the strengths of all the companies, executives said. It combines Highmark Health’s strategy, Google Cloud’s data and League’s user experience expertise. The latter company designs solutions for payers, providers, consumer health partners and employers that are meant to increase engagement among users.
“We each bring something unique to the table: care, cloud and [customer experience],” said Michael Serbinis, CEO and founder of League.
As the companies roll out the platform to Highmark’s 6.8 million members, they will be tracking metrics such as engagement and medication adherence. They will also look for improved health outcomes and improved affordability, but those metrics won’t be immediately noticeable, Hanlon said.
Amy Waldron, global lead of health plan solutions at Google Cloud, declared the new platform is vital as consumers face so many options with digital health. They’re in need of something that is user-friendly and engaging.
“When you look at the environment, it’s so competitive today,” she said. “There are so many choices, and eventually consumers are actually going to select who their partners are in regards to healthcare. So I do think this is a huge game-changer.”
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