YOUR CAREER
What challenges do you see needing to be solved in the healthcare industry? First, collectively as health plans and care systems, we still need to get a good handle on how to effectively manage and bring down the cost of healthcare in the industry. This challenge requires a level of collaboration that we’re just starting to see in various relationships and emerging payment models. Second, there are areas of duplication between healthcare and health plans. We need to look where we continue to overlap and offer differentiation in our service delivery.
Where do you work? I have been with M Health Fairview for the last 10 years.
What is your current role? I am the Vice President of Business, Market, and Product Development. While I have enjoyed my career at Fairview immensely, the time to retire has come and I did so on June 1! How did you get your start at M Health Fairview? I had been working at Blue Cross Blue Shield on the health plan side for almost 20 years and wanted to get back to the care system side. The desire to influence care pivoted me towards Fairview. What accomplishment are you most proud of in your career? Early on at Blue Cross, I was in charge of product development and built out a complete health and wellness portfolio called Blueprint for Health . We oriented all of the resources at Blue Cross towards a portfolio framework to take services to market and augment health products. This is a very common practice now, but was a new way of thinking at the time. More recently at M Health Fairview, I led the development of the new Accountable Care model and the establishment of multiple payer relationships. Many of the ACO products and models in the market today actually originated out of M Health Fairview as a result.
Collectively as health plans and care systems, we still need to get a good handle on how to effectively manage and bring down the cost of healthcare in the industry.
What areas are you seeing the most innovation in healthcare right now? We’ve seen innovation happening in new payment models and ways to access care - including virtual care, remote monitoring, and telehealth. The COVID-19 environment has really accelerated adoption and increased consumer comfort levels in interacting with the healthcare system in a more virtual way, as well as provider comfort in managing patient care remotely. What major changes can we expect in healthcare post-COVID-19? In addition to increased comfort with virtual care, I think we will see an ongoing move to more consumer engagement and control as people take more responsibility for their own health. We will likely see a change in how many actual clinics and brick- and-mortar facilities are in a particular community, as other ways to access care and reduce the need for physical spaces.
PERSPECTIVE ON HEALTHCARE
What is your Healthcare background? When you start out working in a hospital like I did at North Memorial, you become familiar with that environment. Thanks in great part to that early background, I ended up staying my entire career in healthcare. After North Memorial, I started working at United Hospital (before it was purchased by Allina), then Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and M Health Fairview.
22 | Q+A: Rene’ Coult-Calendine
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