World of Mobile Health

Humana’s chief strategy officer talks mobile health

Following the healthcare legislation and in a move toward diversification, last November health plan Humana acquired health care provider Concentra for about $790 million. This week the health plan built on that acquisition with a much smaller deal with South Africa-based Discovery Holdings: Humana is launching a joint venture with Discovery called HumanaVitality that will provide Humana members with wellness tools and rewards. Humana also will own 25 percent of The Vitality Group, Discovery’s US subsidiary, which will still offer its wellness solution to US employers that are not necessarily Humana customers.

“We have this integrated wellness program now but we know we need to figure out how to put it through mobile apps to drive engagement,” Paul Kusserow, Chief Strategy Officer, Humana Venture Capital told MobiHealthNews in an interview at the HIMSS event in Orlando, Fla. this week. “We are talking to a lot of people to get ideas there.”

Kusserow said that he is most interested in data standardization and analytics currently: “If mobile is the last mile and that’s the face of the consumer, then you better make sure the data is out of the silos and personalized. Otherwise people aren’t going to use it.”

Diabetes management, aging in place and social networking and media trends have been top of mind for Kusserow recently.

“Health IT valuations are stratospheric,” Kusserow said. “It will be interesting to see what happens there… On the apps side I haven’t seen such high valuation, though. In the post reform market, the individual market tends to be young and independent. We want to make sure they get their information and staying engaged. We want to make sure we are getting information to these folks.”

Kusserow also sees opportunities on the other end of the age spectrum. Keep reading>>

http://mobihealthnews.com/10300/himss-interview-humanas-chief-strategy-officer-talks-mobile-health/

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