PODCAST | CIGNA, Chief Data & Analytics Officer: Companies have Accelerated their Digital Vision

Andy Sajous: Hello, and welcome to the CDO Magazine interview series. My name is Andy. I'm the field CTO with AHEAD and we're partnering with CDO Magazine in a series of interviews with today's data and technology leaders. Today, I had the pleasure of talking with Ram Kumar. He's the Chief Data Analytics officer at Cigna. Thanks for joining us. Tell us a little about yourself and your role at Cigna.

Ram Kumar: I have more than 34 years of experience in the industry. For about 29 of those years, I've focused on all areas of technology, from starting my career as a programmer all the way to architect, program manager, change and transformation executive. I've also been a CTO and CAO for the largest global insurance company. And I also have over 24 years of experience in data analytics across various areas of data. I started this journey in 1992, touching data strategy, data governance, data risk, data quality, master data, metadata and data monetization.

Even though I was a technologist, I always had a passion for data. And I have a strong background in AI-ML-related R&D, and have applied R&D to solve complex industry problems. I was extremely fortunate to work with some of the fathers and pioneers in the field of AI and ML in the early ‘90s. 

Also, I held many senior and executive leadership roles such as CTO, CIO, CDAO, and recently as a CEO for the number-one data science and AI company globally in data and technologies. And I have worked with numerous teams and businesses in over 40 countries. I'm really very fortunate and lucky to have had strong commercial experience and background in technology, digital data and analytics, AI, and ML. It's so great to see these fields coming together in the present data-driven digital age, as they are critical enablers. 

I joined Cigna only a year ago as the CDAO for its international markets division, which covers over 30 countries in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions. My responsibility is to build data analytics capabilities in these markets by working closely with technology, risk and compliance, and business partners to drive the creation of a data-driven culture and generate business value for the data. And what is very exciting about this role is the opportunity to work with different markets with varying business sizes, business priorities, diverse products, and customers, and varying levels of maturity in data analytics technology, and business processes.

From my experience, one size doesn't fit all and will never work in international markets for many reasons. Therefore, I have to ensure that I focus on the right business priorities that will create value but at the same time, uplift data analytics capabilities in the markets. That requires a thoughtful balancing act and, therefore, it’s challenging, but that is where the opportunities are. And that's why it's always exciting for me to work in international markets.

Sajous: You bring a lot of perspective to the global market and, I think, specifically to the health care industry. The healthcare industry has met significant challenges over the past year and a half. How have you seen technology evolve as a supporter of business goals?

Kumar: That's a very good question. To name one positive thing to come out of the pandemic for organizations globally, it has definitely been the fact that organizations have expedited that digital agenda through technology. A recent global survey revealed that in just a few months, the COVID-19 crisis brought about years of change in the way companies in all sectors and regions do business. Companies have accelerated their digital vision of the customer and supply chain interactions of their internal operations by three or four years. And the share of digital or digitally-enabled products in their portfolios has accelerated by seven years, which is amazing.

And during the pandemic, consumers have moved dramatically toward online channels because of lockdowns, and companies and industries have responded in turn. The survey confirmed the rapid shift toward interacting with customers through digital channels. They also showed that the rates of adoption are years ahead of where they were pre-pandemic, more in Asia than in other regions. Respondents are now three times more likely to say that at least 80% of their customer interactions have been digital in nature compared to pre-pandemic.

Let's look at the healthcare industry. It’s actually not an exception to the unprecedented and accelerated digital strategy. Across the industry, people are now taking a more engaged approach to health care. And they are keen to ensure that they have access to the best care should they need it.

For example, last year there was a whopping 600% increase in demand for virtual health care appointments. And we expect that this will form a core part of the health care journey for many patients. The strong uptick in virtual health services demonstrates that people are becoming more receptive to using technology services to complement or supplement traditional face-to-face consultation. It’s likely this change in attitude will lead to people becoming more driven to seek more in-depth health care details and to demand enhanced services, such as personalized services tailored to their specific needs — definitely rejecting the one-size-fits-all approach as well as driving tighter penetration of private health insurers.

This will also require health insurance to adapt their offerings to meet evolving customer expectations and needs. And in the longer term, we at Cigna are also looking at how we can drive continued innovation in our capabilities in these areas. We have invested in innovative functions and teams, and we have dedicated resources to look at digital and how we integrate that across our value chain with the support of data analytics, creating that intelligence, and using it to improve our customer service and experience.

We have been investing for a couple of years in strategic initiatives that enable us to leverage technology and data to improve over customer service — investment in a joint venture with a 100% data-driven health services company in Australia; the launch of a new health services business, which brings together a vast area of health services and capabilities;  and the recent acquisition of the largest telehealth vendor in the U.S., allowing us to deliver services, including urgent care, dermatology therapy and psychiatry, via its network of certified clinicians. We have taken these bold actions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to make it easier and more affordable for our customers to access the care they need.

We are creating a differentiated and digital-first health care experience,  one that leverages our expertise and innovative tools, resources, and data to help our customers improve their health, wellbeing, and peace of mind. Effectively, this opens up the potential to create highly personalized care pathways that reflect the patient’s full health history and offer a 360-degree approach to care management.

Sajous: That's impressive. So, from your perspective, obviously you bring a lot of in-depth knowledge around AI and leveraging AI with analytics. As AI continues to deliver the promise in this space, is Cigna implementing AI and machine learning techniques to meet business goals?

Kumar: The number-one strategic goal and priority is the affordability of health, which means ensuring that health care remains affordable and accessible for people and communities. This means we should lower the cost of care if we want to achieve affordability goals. We are focused on improving how we deliver health care services effectively and efficiently to our customers, but at the same time ensuring we are at the forefront of the best pharmacy and medical trends.

We are doing this by creating innovative end-to-end solutions that meet pressing health care needs. To support the affordability goal, our solutions should also be predictable and simple for our customers to be comfortable and confident about our offerings, and trust us. Therefore, it is critical that we apply data analytics, coupled with AI and machine learning, to drive intelligent automation to create efficiency and effectiveness, and create intelligent data-driven digital solutions. So, we apply AI and machine learning solutions to bring that intelligence across various health care domains, namely clinical, network, client underwriting, claims, payment integrity, and also fraud waste and abuse. There are many examples where we use AI and ML,  using AI to leverage patient data from their visits to hospitals or clinics, both as inpatient or outpatient for treatments. We look at the data to provide early predictions of the likelihood of patients suffering particular chronic diseases.

Clinicians use that insight. We then proactively reach out to those identified patients with various designed care management and care pathway management programs customized to that individual. In this way, we not only help to protect the individual’s future health but also ensure cost savings for these patients.