An established power in health care, CVS Health wants to take on — in the words of executive vice president and group president Prem Shah — the added role of insurgent. Building on existing capabilities in the drug store, PBM and insurance sectors, the company seeks to shatter the status quo by giving patients real-time access to relevant information from providers across the health care spectrum.
Digital technology is the catalyst for the initiative, creating an opportunity to revamp a misaligned system and potentially transform CVS’ business as fundamentally as the acquisition of the Caremark PBM did in 2007. “A few years ago, we started a very deliberate journey to become a technology products and services company,” Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president of ventures, and chief experience and technology officer, said during the company’s recent Investor Day. “We brought in a lot of people from tech product and consumer engagement companies — Disney, MGM, Twitter before it was X, Amazon, Google, Microsoft. We paired them with people who are experts in health care technology. That combination forced us to look at things differently and do things differently.”
The process resulted in CVS adopting best practices from tech companies and applying them across the company. “So, what happened is, in essence, we became a technology products and services organization that is supporting three massive health care businesses, albeit internal ones.”
Rolling out this year, the CVS Health Consumer Engagement Platform is designed to empower patients by bringing together access to self-care capabilities, digital health, recommendations about the next best action for a given individual, and AI-enhanced interactions with providers. All of which should make patients more active participants in maintaining their health.
“Why is [consumer engagement] so critical in health care, and why is this so difficult to achieve?” Shah asked. “Consistent and continuous engagement translates to longer and healthier lives. High consumer engagement drives behavior change, drives better medication adherence and greater utilization of preventative treatments. All these things are a recipe to reduce health care costs with fewer hospital admissions and readmissions, and lowering the overall total cost of care. At its core, this engagement informs real-time support needs and actions of consumers.”
If it works as intended, the platform will no doubt benefit CVS’ customers and all three of its business units. In addition, executives believe that the new system could become an industrywide standard. Addressing the question of why other health care providers would want to participate, Mandadi said simply, “We’ll become a destination of choice and the consumers are going to force them. The message is you need to be part of this platform — that’s going to come from them.”
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