Bryony Winn:

One of the things I’m most excited about in Carelon is really bringing together different parts of a whole person’s health. When we think about physical health care, home health, in the case of Carebridge, certainly a set of pharmacy and social factors as well. How do you think about pulling that all together in a patient or member friendly way?

Dr. Robert Mandel:

I think it’s about connecting all of those different types of care. Either through technology or, through information and insights that we can deliver to providers. And I think, you know, one of the things you share is like, we have information on 100 million members in a longitudinal way. Providers are interacting with the patient right in front of them. So they really know that patient very well. But we can help inform what they should do with that patient based on the experience we’ve had or we know about with 100 million other patients.

Bryony Winn:

Much is said about fragmentation. Talk to me a little about connectedness.

Dr. Robert Mandel:

I think the fragmentation is in part due to the fact that we have super, super specialization. We just learn more every day about the human body, about the human mind, and develop new treatments and therapies. So, I think that creates just a lot of knowledge for people to keep track of. But I think the introduction of technology, the use of electronic health records, health information exchanges, is allowing us to share information more effectively that then allows providers and patients to understand sort of all of those complexities and pull them together in a more comprehensive way.

Bryony Winn:

The specialization in scientific research that creates more specialization is actually, in some ways, counterbalanced by the fragmentation that that can cause. For people just getting to know Carelon, help us understand a connected care delivery model. What does that mean in practice?

Dr. Robert Mandel:

Well, two things we’re doing at Carelon. One is really thinking about how to support care providers. They’re the frontline folks that take care of patients day in and day out and how do we arm them with the information they need and support them understanding the whole patient and the journey the patient is traveling on? So how do we give them information about what’s going on with the patient’s mental health? How do we go on, give them information about social conditions? All of the things that end up being important when you’re treating a patient. So, supporting care providers: really important. And then we’re bringing together the different aspects of care. So behavioral health, palliative care, specialty care, primary care, and thinking about how to integrate all of those in a way that supports both care providers and our members who are also patients.

Bryony Winn:

Just like scientific innovation in healthcare, care delivery innovation continues to be something that Elevance Health at large is focused on. We’ve just welcomed Carebridge into the Carelon family. Tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that.

Dr. Robert Mandel:

Yeah. So our Carebridge acquisition is very exciting. First of all, it supports our ability to take care of some of the most needy patients in, in our country in an effective way. But it also has a very strong program on member engagement or patient engagement, which I think is something we’ve been striving to do in healthcare for 25, 50 years. Really get patients engaged in their care. They spend a small amount of time directly interacting with the healthcare system and a lot of time on their own, and so understanding what they can do to contribute to better outcomes, improving their health, is really important. So getting them engaged and in that process is really important. And I think Carebridge has a really unique view on how to do that and some amazing expertise. Very impressive.

Bryony Winn:

Doctor Mandel, thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you for joining us in partnering on whole health.