Highmark Health and Verily partner with Google Cloud

Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani joins Vivian Lee, M.D., President of Health Platforms at Verily and Karen Hanlon, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Highmark Health and the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss Verily's partnership with Google Cloud and Highmark Health.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Alphabet's Verily is doubling down on its push to leverage tech in the health space, signing a six-year partnership with Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health. That partnership builds on an existing partnership Highmark Health already has with Google Cloud. And we've got Vivian Lee, who's the president of health platforms at Verily, Karen Hanlon, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Highmark Health. And we've also got our very own Anjalee Khemlani joining in on the conversation.

Welcome to all of you. Vivian, let's start with you. Can you speak to the timing of this partnership and how this really builds on this vision that Verily has put forward to try to utilize the tech that Alphabet has in this particular space?

VIVIAN LEE: Sure. This is a very important six-year partnership with Highmark, which is an integrated health system that really has a bold vision for creating a personalized health experience, engaging their members, using technology to ensure that it's a really personalized experience, as well as using the technology to engage clinicians and physicians in their practice, so that they can work together, partner effectively with their patients in order to ensure the best health outcomes and at the lowest cost of care.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: It's Anjalee here. This question is for either of you. But I think we'll start with Karen. Looking at the way that the health care space is set to be siloed-- and you see that from the insurance standpoint. How does this actually help sort of bridge that, despite the fact that you're going to be partnering with one person or one entity?

KAREN HANLON: Yeah, that's a great question. I think for Highmark, we are in both the payer business as well as the provider business. And so we're able to bring a unique perspective that maybe not other health systems are able to.

In this particular case, our solutions are focused on not only the patient but also the clinician and bringing the entire personalized care plan for any individual to both the patient and the clinician in the simplest, most seamless way possible for them, so that they engage. And I think our objective in doing so is to break down maybe what some of those barriers have been in the past and make sure that we improve adoption through the deep engagement of the individual and their clinician in partnership.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Vivian, a question for you. When we're talking about the idea that bringing tech into health care is supposed to help, especially with AI and machine learning to help reduce the cost of health care, be able to do more predictability, especially for chronic care, which this is focused on, I wonder about the bringing down the cost part because in order to do this, you do have to implement, especially if you're planning to grow this program on a larger scale. How does that balance out and actually bring savings?

VIVIAN LEE: Yeah, well, that's a really great question. And what we understand is really, the lowest costs are the healthiest people. So if we're talking about working with individuals with diabetes or with heart failure or chronic lung diseases, for example, we want to be able to connect those patients with useful insights about their own health and connect them with their doctors and their nurses in their care teams to make sure that the right thing is the easy thing, that they're able to fill their prescriptions, that they're able to manage their diets, whatever's necessary in order to keep them healthy.

And the healthier they are, we know the lower the cost of their care, the less they're going to need high-intensive care. And that's really our goal is to really advance the health of the Highmark community and working, really, in close partnership with a team of individuals who are just so deeply committed to that.

ZACK GUZMAN: And Dr. Lee, I mean, Verily's Healthy at Work program is pretty interesting, considering it seems like a lot of different entities are really focused around getting back into the office in a way that's safe for everybody. I wonder how many questions are raised, though, when you're kind of building on a platform like that in terms of privacy concerns when it comes to your employees wondering whether or not their test results are going to be out there. What kind of issues, or maybe solutions, has Verily run into in that space?

VIVIAN LEE: Well, thanks for mentioning the Healthy at Work program. That's something that we've been very committed to over the last year with the rise of the COVID pandemic and really working closely with our partners to ensure that their employees and, if they're universities, their students and staff as well can get back to work and stay safely at work.

And one of the things that we've very much focused on is the security and the privacy of the data, so that it is only used for its intended purposes, only with the consent of the individuals and that they are fully aware of how their data are being used. And we work, in this case in our partnership, with Highmark. Highmark has had a long and very deeply held and strong position in terms of the privacy and security of the data of its customers and its members and patients. And so in this way, I think we both very much share that commitment.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: I also wonder about the partnerships and growing that when you're looking to the idea of getting to the most in need. Recently in this country, we've talked a lot about minority communities but also tribal nations. How do you plan to get to those, knowing that they're really the highest-cost patients but the most in need of balancing that out with being able to roll out a platform like this and to find a partner for that?

VIVIAN LEE: Well, at Verily, everything that we do is really in partnership with others. And this partnership with Highmark is really one of the most important for us. And it reflects the way in which we think about how we build our platforms and how we ensure that what we're building meets the needs of all of the communities that we aim to serve. And in that way, it's absolutely critical for us to have partnerships which we have established across the country and across a wide range of communities.

And Highmark serves that wide range of communities as well. And so going forward in the next six years, we're really looking forward to working very closely with them because the experience that we're really trying to build is one that is deeply personal, that is customized and personalized, both in terms of the biology of an individual, for example, continuous glucose monitors for people with diabetes, understanding what those individual blood sugar patterns are for people depending on their diet and exercise.

And by creating a personal experience, we can really engage people who have all different kinds of backgrounds, who come from all different kind of life situations, and create solutions that work for them, whether it's their biological-physiological aspect or the ability to just simply connect in real time with people who can provide them good advice, whether it's a health coach, a pharmacist, or a physician or a nurse. And working closely with communities to ensure that we build products that can do all of that is absolutely essential for our future and in this partnership with Highmark too.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: I'm glad you brought up the example of diabetes because my question for Karen is, we know that the pandemic has really brought to light the need for more telehealth, the need for more remote monitoring. And all of these are slowly making their way into the provider space. What have you thought about at Highmark in terms of coverage of this and just sort of the expansion of services, but still focusing on the idea that controlling costs is a central key?

KAREN HANLON: Yeah, core to the living health model of care that we're aiming to achieve is accessibility of health care. And we know that that will take the form of many different types of care. Virtual has clearly been important through COVID. It's been one of those lessons learned. And we expect that that will continue.

For the consumer to engage proactively in their health care, we have to make it accessible in whatever form they're looking for. And part of that is being more proactive about health care and in doing so, being able to engage in the consumer in whatever setting is most convenient for them. So that's a core objective for us in terms of what we're trying to achieve with the living health model.

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, appreciate all of you ladies stopping by the show today. Vivian Lee, president of health platforms at Verily, Karen Hanlon with Highmark Health, and Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani.