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Transforming Healthcare with Russell Van Gorp · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, everyone, and thank you for tuning in
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  to the Becker's health care podcast. We are
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  on-site at Becker's fall payer issues roundtable and
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  are thrilled to be joined today by Russ
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  VanGorp,
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  associate managing director with Publicis Sapient. Russ, thank
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  you so much for joining us today.
• 0:14
  Thanks, Brian. Great to be here. Great to
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  have you. Can can you just to set
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  the stage here, can you introduce yourself, share
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  a few pertinent details about your your professional
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  background and your work in health care? Yeah.
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  Absolutely. I work at Publicis Sapient. I'm in
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  our payer health strategy practice. And and what
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  that means is we partner with our health
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  care clients to make care more accessible,
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  affordable, and consumer friendly in a digital world.
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  And so a lot of the the transformation
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  agenda around around digital innovation
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  is where I where I play.
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  Excellent. Well, great to have you here. Let's
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  let's dig in. And, you know, we hear
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  many leaders in the Paris space are really
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  talking about and expecting health care to become
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  more consumer centric,
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  be it through virtual care or more customized
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  care options.
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  And the hope is these trends will help
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  historically underserved communities as well sort of get
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  get access to care and increase health care
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  literacy as well, health care have an educational
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  impact there.
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  So can you talk a little bit about
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  how you approach consumer engagement
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  and and what trends you're seeing that that's
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  making an impact for those folks today?
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  Yeah. It's it's a good question. I mean,
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  engaging members is tricky. Their their health is
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  kinda constantly changing.
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  Their coverage is also changing. They're switching plans.
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  And this makes it even harder in underserved
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  communities when, you know, basic needs kinda take
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  priority. And so, you know, our research has
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  shown that what matters most to people is
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  is really their quality of life, and that's
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  a personal choice and and being able to
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  spend time with family, friends, and and really
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  be healthy to do those types of things.
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  And so engagement really has to focus on
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  what the consumer cares about. And this starts
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  even before someone really becomes a member, by
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  guiding them through their plan options.
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  Not just based on, you know, cost or
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  network, but on things like, you know, their
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  chronic conditions,
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  aging with peace of mind, those things that
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  allow them to kind of do the things
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  that they wanna do. Right. Right. And it's
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  different for everyone. Right? That's right. And, and
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  I think there's a lot of new tools
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  and and opportunities to to engage differently.
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  I think plans, you know, historically have been
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  a very business out approach to how they
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  engage with their members. And I think there's
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  really yeah. With generative AI and AI, I
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  think there's really an opportunity to actually have
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  a consumer
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  in approach Okay. And actually hear, you know,
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  from them around what their needs are and
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  being able to to talk back to them
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  in in the context of the plan and
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  how they meet those needs. Yeah. It's some
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  some excitement there around AI sort of to
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  enhance communications and engagement in that way.
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  I I did I did see a recent
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  survey that did find though that many health
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  care organizations might be overlooking
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  key factors for successful implementation
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  for for that technology, though. How how are
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  payers specifically responding and and driving impact through
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  technology here, and and and what are the
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  those those things, those factors that folks shouldn't
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  overlook?
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  Yeah. I would say payers are making progress,
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  but there's still a lot of work to
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  be done. And a lot of this is
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  driven, you know, the internal silos that make
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  it really hard.
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  And, you do utilizing data in a meaningful
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  way to consumers is is still a big
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  challenge. And so I would say it's all
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  about prioritizing. You gotta start small. You gotta
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  clean the right data. You gotta set up
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  the tools with the proper governance and the
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  human oversight.
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  And over time, the goal is to move
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  more to a direct to consumer
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  activation.
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  But we need to build the trust, and
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  we need to validate the AI models first.
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  And the power of Gen AI really lies
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  in the collection of that first party data.
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  Mhmm. And that's really gonna be a competitive
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  advantage going forward is really understanding your consumers
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  and be able to segment them
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  really with how they talk and how they
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  you know, the needs that they actually provide
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  you,
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  directly, you know, through a digital channel. Yeah.
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  The data is really everything. Isn't it? Like,
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  it it's it's not gonna be the the
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  technology is not gonna be as effective if
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  you don't got the right data. Right? Truly
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  is. And I think the notion of, you
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  know, if you're able to we're actually working
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  with some of our clients right now around
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  AI driven search and conversational
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  AI type chat tools.
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  Still still yet a lot of work to
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  be done on those. But the idea of
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  being able to have a a member or
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  a prospect to be able to talk about
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  their health and their in their own language
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  and their own words and be able to
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  capture that first party data and be able
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  to structure that in a way that you
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  can actually use it throughout the plan year.
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  And and you can remind them if they
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  talked about an elective procedure during the shopping
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  experience. Mhmm. You can bring that up during
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  the plan year and personalized engagement in a
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  way that actually meets them with their needs.
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  That's that's mind blowing difference in the payer
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  landscape. Yeah. And and when you when you
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  think about that specific, that personalized consumer engagement,
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  are other industries doing this better,
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  that that in health care? And I think
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  I I kinda know the answer to that.
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  But but wanna get your take in terms
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  of what
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  lessons can be learned from other industries who
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  would really
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  sort of nailed this in a way that
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  that health care hasn't yet. Yeah. Absolutely.
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  That proves the statement. We actually work with
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  a lot of the the largest consumer and
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  retail brands out there. One example is, you
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  know, we we partner with Delta in driving
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  a lot of their personalization,
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  on all of their channels. And, not necessarily
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  something we worked on, but what I really
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  you know, one example at Delta is, you
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  know, their year end review type statement that
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  actually provides you some context around what you
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  did use that year and the value of
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  that. I think a lot of these principles
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  can be applied in the health care setting,
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  you know,
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  to actually understand, you know, be proactive, be
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  helpful, provide context as
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  to, you know, those those things that they
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  could utilize to improve their health. You know,
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  I think a lot of that
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  in consumer and retail is a bit easier
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  because the data is a little bit cleaner.
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  Back to the data again. But I think,
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  you know, as you start small and identify
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  what those use cases are, you can you
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  can clean that data and and actually provide
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  some of those experiences that relate to kinda
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  game change the the, overall member engagement experience.
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  Yeah. And and to be fair to health
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  care, right, health care's hard. Healthier's health care's
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  complicated. So,
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  coming to it with a clean set of
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  data is a little bit more challenging than
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  in other industries. Right? Right. That's right. So,
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  at at SAP, you focus on data interoperability
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  and enhancing the experience for for consumers and
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  clinicians alike.
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  How is your approach making a difference?
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  And what should what can other leaders, I
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  guess, listening to this learn from your approach?
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  Yeah. I I where we, start with our
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  clients is,
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  largely with the business. And we we help
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  them understand what is the consumer and the
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  business value that they wanna drive
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  and started working backward from that. And so
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  we use integrated kinda capability teams across strategy,
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  product, experience, engineering
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  in a pod formation
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  to be able to take that use case
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  or that value
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  pool, unpack it, and actually look at, you
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  know, the data and the technology that are
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  essential to that to that engagement strategy.
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  And it's it's not looking at trying to,
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  you know, grab all the data and make
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  it all interoperable.
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  It's really focusing on what is that consumer
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  and business value they wanna drive, and what
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  is the relevant data that's attached to that.
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  Yeah. Really having a at the onset, know
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  where you wanna be, know where the finish
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  line is. Exactly. Yeah.
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  Anything else you'd like to share with with
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  listeners that we didn't touch on or anything
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  you wanna reemphasize as well? I think this
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  the only thing is, you know, member engagement
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  is an ongoing journey. It's never really done.
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  I think the key is to really start
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  somewhere and celebrate, you know, the wins along
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  the way, track performance,
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  baseline, and measure improvement.
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  Yep. Excellent. Well, Russ, it's been a pleasure
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  speaking with you today. Thank you.
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  Well, I thank Russ again for taking the
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  time to come on the podcast, and I
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  wanna thank Publicis Sapient for sponsoring today's content.
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  To our listeners, thank you for joining us,
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  and please be sure to check out other
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  Becker's podcasts. Have a wonderful rest of your
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  day.