Kristen Ford, vice president of product innovation and development for behavioral health, has led many new innovative products being developed at Magellan Health. In her position, Ford is responsible for the product innovation and development activities for behavioral health solutions. Ford, who is based in Oregon, has worked for Magellan Health for 12 years on various innovation strategies focused on best-in-class services that help members live healthier lives. She is a Six Sigma Black Belt and a clinician who’s passionate about driving human-centered product development that changes lives. Most recently she’s helped to launch a full continuum population health wellbeing solution to improve population engagement into evidence-based care and improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare for those that are thriving, struggling or suffering. Continue reading to learn more about Ford’s work on these innovative products:

What cool, innovative products are you currently working on?

My responsibilities focus on new products that drive growth, leverage Magellan Health’s thought leadership, and enhance the lives of the people we serve. One example is the development of a comprehensive autism strategy where we are creating new mechanisms for timely access to autism screening with faster diagnosis to improve early intervention. We are laying the groundwork for new clinical models that intertwine technology, diagnostics, therapeutics and facilitate better coordinated care for the whole child.

We’re also working on other complex areas of healthcare such as suicide prevention. We care deeply about the recent increase in population suicide trends and our mission is to make suicide a never event. We do that through creating solutions that empower individuals with knowledge, education and tools in an environment of uninterrupted and supportive care.

Medical integration is another area of focus with our new collaborative care product which improves medical and behavioral health integration by making it easier for primary care physicians to diagnose and treat members’ behavioral health condition in the office. We’re looking at ways to solve important challenges in the delivery of behavioral healthcare by working on solutions that enable navigation, digital engagement, transform the delivery system and offer new models of care.

Can you expand on the work you’re doing with projects like Mightier, NeuroFlow and DUOS?

Mightier is a biofeedback gaming solution that teaches children emotional regulation to help them manage big emotions and teach calming strategies. This is important because it offers a bridge to care for children and families that are struggling. It’s been shown to be highly effective in randomized control trials for children with autism, ADHD, OCD or other similar conditions. It’s improved oppositional behaviors in children and decreased caregiver stress. We’re currently working with Mightier on a study through the National Institute of Mental Health to show that using this type of intervention can improve quality and cost of care.

We’re also working with NeuroFlow to deliver a collaborative care product, which expands Magellan’s value proposition with the ability to manage total cost of care. NeuroFlow brings the technology, and Magellan provides the clinical management which has resulted in a solution that is highly appreciated by our clients. We also launched the NeuroFlow population health app which provides digital wellbeing and self-care tools, including our digital cognitive behavioral therapy modules, to help members improve overall health and wellbeing, manage stress and build resilience in a confidential manner.

DUOS is an opportunity for us to address the social determinants of health and needs of older populations. DUOS provides a personal assistant for aging – a DUO – to help older adults stay healthy and age independently in their own homes. We connect older adults with social support and resources to manage social isolation, healthcare access and behavioral health needs. In our pilot results, we found that 97% of seniors were linked to resources to meet their needs and has high satisfaction with a net promoter score of 88.

Why is Magellan Health the best place to build new innovative products?

We are fortunate to have an executive leadership team that developed a culture that supports innovation. It’s part of our DNA. We have been successful in evolving our innovation strategy that positions Magellan as a thought leader and innovator in the behavioral health and wellbeing space. Our executive leadership believes that innovation is essential in treating the whole person, achieving growth and moving our business forward.

What are your thoughts on Magellan’s culture? How has that culture impacted the products you’ve worked on?

I think it’s a highly collaborative and team-oriented culture. Everyone is willing to roll up their sleeves and help achieve the best outcomes. The Magellan culture is purpose and mission driven. Everyone you encounter is focused on the best ways to support our customers, ensure members have the best experience and they’re getting the best care possible. I think that’s the picture of Magellan and it’s a wonderful place to work and drive innovation.

Currently, we have a pipeline of over 44 different products or product enhancements that we’d like to explore. People are familiar with Magellan’s culture of dedication and innovation. As a result, they are willing to collaborate and advise us as we drive towards solutions that can improve the lives of those members we serve.

What exciting trends in the healthcare industry have you noticed? What direction do you see healthcare going? What lessons are there to learn in other industries that can be applied to healthcare?

There are new trends in the field of autism related to clinical advancement and how we work with children on the spectrum as well as exciting developments and solutions in managing the total cost of care. There are new approaches that allow us to combine technology and clinical acumen deliver new care models. The pandemic created an environment where members and providers used new technologies and tools out of necessity which now provides us opportunity to continue to build and accelerate the adoption of new care models through technology. We are also seeing new and exciting opportunities to engage and activate members while reducing stigma.

Some industries can market directly and successfully engage the end user. We can learn from those industries and drive growth through that engagement.

We are fortunate that the Magellan leadership team and culture supports us in exploring those recent trends and solving for some of the most difficult challenges we see in service delivery.

When Magellan Health received word that it had been named a Fortune 500 company for the first time in our company’s history, it was cause not only for great celebration, but also reflection.

In recent years, we’ve experienced tremendous growth and momentum. Our purpose—“Leading humanity to healthy, vibrant lives”—fuels the work of our more than 10,000 associates, who are dedicated each day to making a meaningful difference in members’ health and their lives. One of our biggest growth drivers has been our ability to innovate and introduce new products that resonate and disrupt the industry across all areas of healthcare and pharmaceutical management, with the ultimate goal of delivering a consumer-centric model that improves health and health outcomes.

At Magellan, our model of care is unique in that it is both high-touch and high-tech, supported by an innovative and inclusive culture. Three keys to our success stand out.

When it comes to innovation, Magellan’s secret sauce is its culture. We continually seek people from outside the healthcare industry to challenge the status quo and help drive innovation around access to care and care quality with their unique perspectives. By providing our associates the space, flexibility and resources to experiment, we encourage creativity and offer the freedom to pursue ideas that push traditional boundaries. We put a great deal of trust in our talented colleagues instead of relying on a structure that in and of itself is defeatist for innovation.

We innovate with the member in mind. At Magellan, we’re dedicated to consumer-centric care that achieves improved outcomes by integrating healthcare across physical, behavioral and pharmaceutical services. By pioneering new strategies, we’ve been able to tackle the highest-trend components of healthcare expenditures using agile, clinically based technology and applying advanced analytics to develop next-generation solutions. This approach not only enables highly personalized services to be delivered, but also supports the best possible outcomes in the most cost-effective way for our members.

For example, roughly half of total pharmacy spend is driven by specialty drugs, with half of that specialty spend covered under medical benefits. This portion of specialty spend is typically unmanaged by pharmacy benefit managers and health plans. Magellan has differentiated itself in the specialty drug management space by pioneering innovative strategies focused on improved outcomes and value. We provide high-touch decision support tools that support specialty physicians in ordering complicated drug regimens. These tools help to ensure treatments are being administered at the most clinically appropriate site of service and are appropriately used.

We pursue atypical collaborations. Transforming healthcare requires unique collaborations to fuel new solutions that achieve disruptive change and improve health. A majority of our unique collaborations are in the digital therapeutics space. Two years ago, we partnered with Click Therapeutics to create FDA-approved therapeutic apps for treating common behavioral health conditions such as insomnia, anxiety and depression. One example is an app called ComfortAble^TM, which helps people suffering from chronic pain identify and change unhelpful thinking and behavior and learn new problem-solving techniques. At a time when our nation faces an opioid epidemic, much of which stems from difficulties in managing pain, ComfortAble^TM presents an opportunity to curb the use of pharmaceuticals in pain management.

An Eye Toward Tomorrow’s Healthcare Model

As Magellan has migrated to a culture of innovation, one of our biggest learnings is the need to innovate with a small “i.” We’ve learned over time that the best ideas aren’t always going to be big, bold-stroke, billion-dollar ideas. Ultimately, we’re innovating to help people live better, healthier and more vibrant lives. That’s a purpose all of our associates, from our senior leaders to our interns, not only embrace, but act upon.

At Magellan, all of our initiatives are centered on one objective: to provide highly personalized services that support the best possible outcomes in the most cost-effective way for our members. We will continue to innovate and introduce products that resonate, disrupt the industry and make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

You’re buying a car. Before you hit the lot, you do your planning and research, establish a budget, figure out what features you want and what style you’re looking for. You probably search online for car and dealer reviews, prices and sales. Based on all of that work, you make a decision, negotiate and pay for your new car.

Your car research was relatively easy. But finding a healthcare provider? Not so much.

While you may know what you want in a provider, very little information is available about the services they provide, appointment costs, reviews and other important details to help you make an informed choice about your care. And if you ARE lucky enough to find someone who seems to fit your needs, you’re often still left wondering what kind of quality you can expect from your treatment experience.

The bottom line is that it’s easier to buy a car than it is to find a healthcare provider. Silly, right? We think so, too – which is why Magellan is bridging these information and quality gaps by employing value-based purchasing models.

Rewarding quality care yields informed choices

Value-based purchasing takes various forms. But it generally operates on the premise that aligning providers’ incentives and reimbursement with organizational and individual goals incents behavior and drives positive outcomes, ultimately benefiting all involved in the healthcare continuum. This includes consumers, customers and payers, in addition to the providers themselves, who also enjoy improved reputations through public reporting.

In fact, one of the key tenets of Magellan’s value-based collaboration and purchasing models is to ensure stakeholders become more informed as a result of these initiatives:

• Customers benefit by knowing whom to partner with for network management;
• Payers benefit by knowing whom to pay for value; and
• Consumers, of course, benefit by having those online provider reviews become a lot less elusive, enabling them to make an informed decision about whom to choose for their care.

Magellan’s models also center on:

• Engaging and empowering providers in compensation model evolution. We partner with provider leaders around compensation design, employ transparency to ease the compensation shift and create meaningful incentives for providers to encourage active engagement. (1)

• Building provider compensation for an evolving healthcare market. Our priorities center on population management, team-based care and member access. We integrate new quality and efficiency standards into compensation, and remove compensation barriers to population goals. (1)

Why do we give value-based purchasing strategies the green light?

Take our Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program as just one example. Through program data analysis and close collaboration with our ACT provider teams, we developed a three-tiered rate structure based on overall program goals to support recovery, wellness, and to improve community tenure. As a result, we saw a 21 percent decrease in inpatient admissions and a 24 percent decrease in the inpatient readmission rate.

Our drive for engagement continues

Providers nationwide are in different phases of readiness, so we keep our wheels in motion by providing a graduated maturity model to move them from the most basic stage—learning the behavior through activity incentives—to the most complex arrangements, which transform care delivery through outcomes-based incentives or other payment structures (2). We look forward to working with stakeholders, providers and consumers as we continue to expand this innovative and exciting model.

(1) Medical Strategy Group Council: “Next-Generation Physician Composition,” The Advisory Board Company

(2) Physician Quality Reporting Initiative: The Advisory Board Company