When I arrived in Rhode Island, I felt strongly – and still do – that our company had a responsibility to be part of the solution to improve the state's economy. As we consider how we do right by our customers and our provider partners, we also ask: Will this make Rhode Island a place where people want to work, start or grow businesses, and invest?
We're making great strides. Rhode Island is the perfect location to be a laboratory for testing new models for doing business, especially when you take advantage of ease of connectivity that our size provides.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island works with provider partners and emerging "systems of care" on innovations like bringing caregivers into homes of the sickest patients, making sure their environments are safe and their medical needs are met. We've placed pharmacists in primary care provider offices and created new models for community-based care of patients with severe and persistent behavioral health challenges. We're working to help primary care doctors coordinate the entire patient experience, including scheduling, specialist visits, access to appropriate resources and preventative-care needs.
A key to all these efforts is collaboration, which in turn helps develop ideas that can be scaled across the state and beyond. At the same time, as Rhode Island becomes a national model for what health care can be at a local level, we'll be a more attractive location for businesses of all sizes.
And that's what I call healthy. •