[Music]
DAN: Solving problems
in healthcare is hard
but there's some novel
new ways of doing that
here at Blue Cross.
Hello I'm Dr. Dan McCoy
and welcome to
Blue Promise.
I'm here with Kevin Cassidy
who's our president of
Enterprise National
Accounts at Blue Cross.
Kevin, there is this new
process happening at
our C1 Innovation Lab
called design thinking
what is design
thinking?
KEVIN: Thanks for
having me Dan,
and it's a great
question right?
So, Design Thinking
is a very specific
process that you use
to apply an idea
through from ideation
all the way to
piloting or
prototyping.
Now let me be
specific and give
you some examples.
First of all
remember what we're
trying to do
is help our customers
solve business problems
through their group
health plan and
so what that
specifically means
is how can
we lower cost,
improve healthcare
quality and
improve the
patient experience?
That may help them
solve a business
problem that they
have so when we think
about that
we're putting
ourselves in the
center of what
design thinking
is all about.
Design thinking
is all about empathy,
focusing on
the user and
being empathetic
to where their
pain points
are and research,
a lot of research
so not just a hunch
on what might
be a good idea.
DAN: So it sounds
like that one of the
first things that
you're going to do
is have a very deep
understanding of
what keeps our
customers awake at night.
KEVIN: Absolutely and
once we have that
specific issue that
keeps them up at night
we will process it
through design thinking
and that will be a
deep immersion on
the issue so sort
of strategic exploration
and a lot of research.
So the work would go
through ideation, research,
prototype or design
more research and
then refining it
before you get to the
final idea or the final
sort of challenge
statement.
DAN: I think the other
thing that's interesting
here is that there's
really not what I
would think of as
design thinkers
there's that this is
a group of people that
do real work and
deal with real problems
every day that are
participating
in the
conversation.
KEVIN: That's a
great point.
So these are really
bright individuals
they have entrepreneurial
spirits and they're
sometimes trained in
design thinking
but we can teach
it to them.
What they're really
good at is this
is taking ideas and
looking at them
differently.
They're really good
at doing research
and I'm not just
talking about research
in terms of
books or online
they're gonna look
over the shoulder
of our members.
What is it that's
working for you?
What isn't?
They're gonna go
into our employers
office and watch
the employees get on
the trucks that they
drive and see what
pain points for them and
what works and doesn't
so real live
research in the field
to see how we can
help our customers.
DAN: And so basically
these people have deep
knowledge of their area
whether it's sales, network,
maybe analytics or
actuarial and then they
bring on this new concept
of design thinking
the thought process.
KEVIN: Absolutely. One
of those another example
might be they might
they might be good in
application development
so they can take
an idea and show us
what it would look
like in an app if
we're gonna launch it
that way after the team
has run all the
way through the research
so it's really, really exciting
and it's a well
documented way
to get ideas through a
thoughtful process.
I'd also like to
remind, this ideation
process we welcome
our customers to
come into the office
and help us through
this process.
We welcome providers
if we see if we see
an opportunity there.
Academia.. so I think
there's a lot of
opportunity in
healthcare for people
to come into the
lab work with us
in this design
thinking process
and push
through ideas.
DAN: So this
sounds pretty novel
in our industry
this idea of
bringing customers
in first because it
correct me if wrong
you've been doing this
a long time right?
So it sounds like
in the past a lot of
industries or
particularly in healthcare
would try to solve a
problem and then
take it to a customer
but this sounds
like you're really
moving the customer
almost first in
the conversation.
KEVIN: I been at this
twenty-five years and
while we've asked
customers for feedback
never in an approach
like this so I'm really, really
excited about it and
I do think it is not only
differentiating
an industry,
I think we're gonna
be really proud
as a company
that we were
able to dive deep
into some problems
that our customers
were having
then we solve them
for them so yeah
I agree, others in
industry say they're
doing it but I haven't
found anyone that has
the co-location of
the nurses and the
customer advocates
to make the power
of the solutions
that come out of
the office
I think even that
much more
impactful.
DAN: Great. Well, Kevin
thanks for being here
today and thanks for
joining us for this
episode of
Blue Promise.
[Music]
