Transcript
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00:08
Venky Ananth:
Hello and welcome to Pacesetters. In this edition of Pacesetters, I have Lisa Davis. She's the Chief Information Officer of Blue Shield of California. For me, somebody like Lisa epitomizes the spirit of Pacesetters because she's always set the agenda for change, embraces change, and thrives on change. She started her career as the CIO of Counterintelligence and US Marshals in the Department of Defense, then she moved on to Georgetown University, as a CIO again there. And then she switched gears on to a completely different industry- high tech industry, Intel, driving PNL. And then again in 2020, she again moves on to healthcare industry, a completely different industry, to become the CIO of Blue Shield of California. Today, I'm very excited to have her here and understand the kind of change that she's heading in Blue Shield. Welcome to Pacesetters.
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01:06
Lisa Davis:
Thank you, Venky. Happy to be here.
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01:08
Venky Ananth:
Let's dive in, Lisa, you know, let’s talk about your career. I did give a pitch about you. But I want to hear from your own words. How did you start your career? I know that you actually started as a high school student, as an intern in the Department of Defense. So, tell us about your career journey and how you have gone through it, before we talk about Blue Shield.
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01:27
Lisa Davis:
Yeah, happy to. I did start as a high school senior. The government had a junior fellowship program that they were trying to recruit engineers to come work for the government. And I was a computer engineering undergrad at Syracuse University. So I started as a high school senior. Every summer break, spring break, never went to the Bahamas. Came home and worked at Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Center. And then when you graduate, they offer an accelerated program through the GS grade scale, graduating with your undergrad GS seven, nine and eleven. But, you know, of course, what I did is when I graduated, I said, why would I want to work for the government? I wanted to work for a big tech company, which is why ultimately I went to Intel.
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02:18
Lisa Davis:
That was part of my personal goals. But eventually came back to the government after marrying a Navy guy. And, kind of brought me back to the government when our first duty station was Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So after Guantanamo Bay for five years, I continued my career in Department of Defense. Really doing every job within an IT organization, from help desk to infrastructure to mission application systems to becoming a deputy CIO, to getting my certified information security professional, obviously. Working in DoD with classified networks, that was critical from a cybersecurity standpoint, until I became a CIO in the counterintelligence field activity and then completing my career with the Department of Justice as the CIO for the U.S. Marshals Service.
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03:16
Venky Ananth:
Fascinating, fascinating. And tell me what made you switch from Intel into healthcare? I mean, obviously, Intel is one of the iconic firms that one can work for. Then you shifted into healthcare. Any personal insights there?
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03:33
Lisa Davis:
Yes. I was running the enterprise and government PNL for Data Center Group. So I had the opportunity to work with healthcare companies, pharma companies, and in that work certainly knew that the health sector was the sector that needed the most digital transformation. So when it comes to impact, and I must be a glutton for punishment is why I go from government to academia to high tech and then to healthcare, I'm always searching for those opportunities to have an impact, to drive change. You said I thrive on change. Maybe I do thrive on change, but certainly those are the roles that interest me. And to be able to come into Blue Shield of California, where their mission was to create a health care system worthy of our family and friends and to transform the system today. Healthcare’s personal, having my own personal healthcare, my parents’, my grandparents’, knowing that the healthcare industry really needed transformational change is what brought me to Blue Shield of California.
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04:46
Venky Ananth:
For our audience, why don't you share with us what Blue Shield is all about. Obviously, it's one of the largest Blues in the country. But I would like to hear from your own words what Blue Shield stands for. What is the mission? The vision behind Blue Shield.
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05:01
Lisa Davis:
Blue Shield of California is a nonprofit, based here in California. We serve just over 5 million members here in California; we have about $23 billion in revenue every year. But we cap our profits at 2% to invest back into the communities that we serve. Coming to Blue Shield of California, Venky, took me full circle, in to mission orientation. I grew up coming out of high school, through college, focused on the mission in Department of Defense of supporting the war-fighter, right? Coming through academia, high tech, very much focused on revenue and the bottom line, coming back into health care with Blue Shield of California took me back to my mission roots, of what was most important.
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05:54
Lisa Davis:
So we believe at Blue Shield of California, that the health care system is broke. Incremental change won't get us there. It will take too long. It requires transformational change. And to create this system that is worthy of our friends and our family. And when we say that mission statement, until you really internalize it, to say, well, what does that mean? That means if I was admitted into the hospital, a family member, a dear friend, Venky, you, you can expect the same quality of care, right, that I would receive or anyone receives when I enter into the health care system.
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06:40
Venky Ananth:
Right. So let's let's dive in, Lisa and you know, I was just reflecting on the last 4 odd years. We were talking about it yesterday over dinner, the number of transformations that, you know, Blue Shield has done is staggering. And, we could speak all day, but I just picked up 3 or 4 big tickets. But let's start with healthcare transformation.
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07:04
Venky Ananth:
You spoke about the reason why you wanted to move from a firm like Intel into healthcare industry was to actually drive the transformation that you just spoke about. And, one of the big, next-generation healthcare strategies that Blue Shield has is what you call Health Reimagined. Now, I know Health Reimagined stands on the three H, as they call it, you know, holistic health, hyper personalized care and then high tech, high touch care, right? Now tell us a little more about it. Where is the reimagination coming in, and how does it actually, you know, touch the members you spoke about, right? So, give us some color on that.
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07:45
Lisa Davis:
Yeah. You called out those key attributes of how do we reimagine healthcare. First of all, today we don't have a system that's personalized, cater to the needs that I have, my own health needs. Nor do we cater necessarily on wellness. We wind up going to the doctor when we're already sick, right? So, creating a system that is personalized to you or I, that is holistic and looking at all the social determinants of health, not just my clinical care. Where do I live? What is my nutrition? What is my fitness? What are my genetics? All of these data parameters that come together, that make me who I am and you who you are. That's holistic when I look at that completely on the individual. And then the pieces that have been missing in healthcare is around this high tech piece.
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08:39
Lisa Davis:
Moving to digital, but not only high tech, but high touch in terms of what our customers, consumers, their same expectations that they have today, going and doing banking are the same expectations that they should have when they enter a health care facility, right? So that's the foundation of how we think about our transformation. And part of that starts, to get that experience with data. And data has to be the heart of the strategy. So in order to enable the business transformation in healthcare from a technology lens, we needed our first transformation to be about the foundation. And that was moving to a cloud-first environment, moving our data to the cloud. Because the key piece of that is real time data access, right?
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09:35
Lisa Davis:
And that is what has plagued our health care system-data interoperability, data sharing. So that I have the data that I need. And I can share that between the provider, the payer and us as the member to create that holistic, personalized care. And we believe when that data is shared, not only are you making decisions on your health, we're putting you in charge of your health. We know that it improves health outcomes, and ultimately it reduces the cost of health care in this country. So data is at the core. So we've been driving over the last several years this cloud first transformation, moving from an on-premise environment into the cloud. And really the data is at the heart of our strategy. And part of the work that we've been doing with that data is what we call an Experience Cube.
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10:31
Lisa Davis:
That's our data platform that's sitting in Microsoft Azure. And the differentiator from other data warehouses is we believe we can create a data platform that is able to be transparent and share that data between member, provider and the payer, right? That starts with a foundation of trust, but it also starts with the ability to share data with one another, so that we can create the best member experience and improve the experience that our providers are having, certainly, after coming out of the pandemic.
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11:10
Venky Ananth:
Experience Cube, experience for the provider, member, payer, everybody.
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11:14
Lisa Davis:
Yes, everyone. That's why we call it the Experience Cube.
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11:18
Venky Ananth:
Now I want to talk about another idea that, you know, your CEO and you also have been pushing- big, bold idea called Real Time Enterprise. Real time claims, real time enrolment, and real time authorizations, right? And, it's such a bold idea because, the central theme being you want to drive retail-like experience in a healthcare setting, right? And I walk into Best Buy to buy my favorite TV. I know what I'm going to pay. I pay there, get done with it and come home. No surprises. So I know this is a big vision, a bold vision. How are you doing that? And where are you in that journey and how do you see the future on real time enterprise in healthcare?
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12:03
Lisa Davis:
Yeah. it is a bold move, but it's such a needed move because that ties back to creating that personalized, real time experience for members and providers. It also dramatically reduces the cost of health care in this country today. Imagine the overhead of processing claims, all the various departments, all the overhead. So you gave an example of a retail-like experience. Imagine that experience where I walk into the hospital, I walk into my doctor's office, I have a procedure done, I know exactly what it costs. I know exactly what I'm going to pay based on my deductible. And then I make a payment. The provider gets paid, I make the transaction, I walk out the door. It's near real time, and I create that retail-like experience.
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12:59
Lisa Davis:
And we have proven through the workflow with previous partners that we can do that under 10 seconds. Now, we need to do that at scale. So we're working with partners today like Oracle in terms of auto-coding all of those clinical codes. But it also requires us to look at all the core functions through a health plan because that's what payers do. We pay claims, right? So it requires transformation whether it's network, whether it's on the clinical side, whether it's on the contract side around standardization. So we simplify, digitize and automate how we do business in order to auto- code in real time to create that experience. So it’s a multi-year journey. We're in year three. We're learning a ton. We're continuing to reduce the complexity of our codes. We're testing and leveraging technology to do that. And we believe we can get to that real time enterprise over the next several years.
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14:05
Venky Ananth:
Fascinating. And do I call it setting the pace for change, you know, you are really setting the pace there. Good luck on that. And, I know, it's only as successful when the entire ecosystem plays along, right? All right, let's shift gears, Lisa. I want to talk about Care Connect. This is a transformation program that's won industry accolades, and you spoke about the Experience Cube, and that seems to be powering the entire view, a 360 degree view of the member, right? The clinical data, the claims data, the pharmacy data. You are bringing it all together to drive what is known as care management, right. Interventions at the right time, at the right place, at the right cost for the members so that they can get the required care. And I also know that, you know, I believe you have a billion plus data points in terms of clinical data points to drive that care to the member. And you have also driven successfully a thousand plus care gaps during the care management process. Talk to us about it, why has this won industry accolades. What is the beauty of Care Connect. How does it dovetail into your health reimagined larger transformation vision that Blue Shield has?
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15:22
Lisa Davis:
This was such, and you said it so well in terms of all the key points. That's exactly right. This was incredible work by the Blue Shield team, technology and our business partners. We had technology debt. We had almost ten different systems that were providing care management for our members. That whole, we recognized, needed to be modernized as we talked about, digitized and simplified in terms of the processes, in terms of getting to that real time data. That's why the Experience Cube is in there as well. And we were a definitional partner, with Salesforce.
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16:01
Venky Ananth:
Right.
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16:02
Lisa Davis:
And we defined what we believed care management needed to be in the future, not how it was necessary to do today, but thinking strategically as we think about this real time data enterprise, what does care management need to be? And using agile methodologies, which I'm also very proud of. We, from an IT perspective, we implemented agile mindset, agile methodologies. We've been on our agile journey. If we did not have agile, we would not have been able to deliver this capability in nine months to meet a government mandate. So it had to go live at the top of the year. And the team delivered on that. So, phenomenal work.
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16:51
Lisa Davis:
And what the platform is doing, and you called it out- it allows us to close critical care gaps for our most ill members in real time. So we have closed now almost 1700 plus care gaps and are able to do that in real time for our members. That creates that personalized experience. When I can have caregivers into the system understanding where the care gaps are and then working with our members to close them to make sure that their health care is front and center. That is what it's all about at the end of the day- of creating a foundation for a real time enterprise. Team did incredible work to pull that off.
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17:43
Venky Ananth:
Congratulations on that. You know, the next big ticket I want to talk about, Lisa, is Pharmacy Reimagined. Pharmacy, as you know, is literally at a national level a very controversial topic, if you will, because drug prices are very close to everybody's heart. You have been bold to publicly go and say that we are going to reimagine this space, and you kind of are bringing together multiple players.
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18:14
Venky Ananth:
You’re bringing in Amazon for the last mile delivery, you’re bringing in Mark Cuban Cost Plus from a RX perspective to drive competitive pricing on the drug itself. You're bringing in players like Prime Therapeutics to kind of negotiate on behalf of you for better pricing for the members. And you are bringing in even players like CVS Caremark for specialty health. So it's like literally bringing together a village to reimagine pharmacy and make the difference. Just curious to know more details about this. How are you doing this and what's the game in this in terms of essentially driving the outcome that you're seeking from a pharmacy reimagination.
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18:58
Lisa Davis:
Yeah. The the ultimate outcome is to reduce drug prices for our members. Because, as you mentioned, drug prices continue to escalate. So we've created a model where we can significantly lower the cost of drugs by the business model that we have created, and that is with all of those partners. So, essentially disintermediating the pharmacy benefit manager-it's kind of in the middle of the workflow and the process- bringing that internally into Blue Shield, and that helps us with the negotiation with these business partners to ultimately drive the cost of drugs down. Now that, from a technology perspective, it's probably one of the most complex initiatives that we're driving from a transformational standpoint. It's the integration of eight different systems, right? The data integrations between these systems, how that comes into our Experience Cube, so that we're doing that once again, creating that real time personalized experience for our members. So we're looking to kick this off. Time is of the essence. 1/ 25, right? So the team is working hard.
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20:15
Venky Ananth:
Is that when you are going to to go live?
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20:16
Lisa Davis:
That's when we're going to go live, right. 1/25, and the teams are working really hard, again in agile, to meet the date and to deliver this transformative model for our members.
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20:31
Venky Ananth:
Awesome. Good luck on that. I know this is a big, big deal. Look, healthcare reimagined, you spoke about. You spoke about Experience Cube. You spoke about real time enterprise. You talk about pharmacy reimagination, care connect, the ability to bring together teams, to stitch together multiple systems to kind of essentially deliver that benefit to the member.
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20:54
Venky Ananth:
So you're truly setting the pace with change, at the risk of sounding repetitive, but I'm absolutely inspired. One last question before we wrap up, Lisa. You know, you are a woman leader in the healthcare industry, literally, you know, showing the way, and how it is done. Any messages for young women out there on how did you get where you are? I have two daughters and, you know, every day, this is like a conversation that we have at the dining table every day. But I want to hear from you, your message to all the women leaders out there on how to get there.
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21:35
Lisa Davis:
I think my immediate message would be, we need a call to action. You know, I grew up in Department of Defense, academia, high tech. And for the majority of my time, I was the only woman in the room. So I grew up being the only woman in the room. And in that experience, I had to learn how to build confidence, how to build my thought leadership, to become really good at what I did, in order to be recognized and to get and take my seat at the table. And notice I said, take my seat at the table as well. And that teaches you to persevere, you know. How did I get here? It's a matter of grit, continued perseverance with setbacks, understanding what my goals were, looking long term and taking a step forward whenever I felt that I wasn't, I was having a setback or I couldn't get where I needed to do because of barriers or obstacles that were in my way.
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22:48
Lisa Davis:
So you have to have a mindset of determination, of grit that I will persevere. I will persevere. And today, unfortunately, after the pandemic, we lost four times as many women in the workplace as we did men. One of the core issues is childcare. We need to fix childcare in this country so that women can continue to stay in the workplace. And we have a pipeline problem. We know we lose our women when they want to start a family because it's very difficult with childcare situations to manage both, and it's very costly. We also know that we lose our young girls in eighth grade when peer pressure becomes front and center and then they don't major in math and the sciences, and they're not prepared when they come to college to take an engineering role.
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23:45
Venky Ananth:
Right.
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23:46
Lisa Davis:
So it really requires, I think, from a women's leadership standpoint, we need more role models. We need more role models, of our younger girls seeing women in technology leadership roles. I have a friend and we talk about, you know, what Grey's Anatomy did for women doctors. We need a TV show that markets strong technology women in leadership roles to show our young girls that they too can be this and aspire to be this. And we need to make technology more accessible to our young girls. They don't necessarily want to build robots. Yeah, they want to change the world. So how do we help them change the world? And how do we show them that being in technology allows them to do that and pursue their goals and dreams of what they want to do?
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24:47
Venky Ananth:
You spoke about grit and attitude at the workplace. We are in 2024. Do you think things have changed? What's your sense?
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24:56
Lisa Davis:
Well, I think the good news is in health care, I'm so pleased that I've seen more women in my career than I've ever seen before. Really proud of Blue Shield of California. We have a female board chair. We have 50% diversity at executive leadership, 50% diversity in our board. Fantastic in terms of equal pay and representing women and diversity at our leadership level. And do I think it's getting better? No, I don't, actually. I think there is much, much work to do. We need women as executive leaders to pull other women forward. We need to understand where women are getting stuck in our workplaces. We need to solve the childcare problem in this country so that women can continue to pursue their careers and their goals.
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25:50
Lisa Davis:
And all of that requires an incredible support system, right? I mean, the reality is, I get the question from women all the time, you know, can you have it all? Can you have a career and can you have a family? I said, yes, of course you can. Requires ruthless prioritization and you need a support network. And I've been blessed with an incredible husband. We are partners. He has a career. I have a career. We raise our children together. We share responsibilities in order for both of us to pursue our goals. So those support networks, whether it's your spouse, your partner, a family member, friends, a support network around women for them to continue and pursue their goals.
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26:37
Venky Ananth:
Wonderful. Thank you for that message, Lisa. Truly enjoyed this conversation and thanks for the insights that you shared with us. Thank you.
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26:44
Lisa Davis:
Thank you.
