1.
The Rise of
Connected Health:
Transforming the Health Insurance Marketplace
March 2015
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rihts reserved.
Mike Haymaker
Tony Kalams
EJ Bowen

2.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rights reserved. 1
The Move to Connected Healthcare
Connected health consumers: They’re here. They’re smart and demanding,
expecting a level of service as transparent and flawless as that of any top
retailer. And when they’re not happy, they’ll let you know it. In fact, they’ll let
everyone know, via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media.
Today’s health consumers don’t always take great care of themselves. Many
have chronic conditions that worsen as they age. While they’d like to be
healthier, many don’t want to do the hard work to get there. And although
they’ll listen to each other, they won’t necessarily listen to you – and you can
lose their trust in a heartbeat.
It’s not just the patients that are changing: Your healthcare providers are too.
Physicians, hospitals, and clinics have spent billions of dollars over the last
few years to implement electronic medical records (EMRs) and to up-level IT
capabilities, and now they expect you to do the same, making you an active
partner in providing care. By minimizing errors, improving medication adher-
ence, and managing conditions more effectively, value-based, integrated
provider and payer resources can lead to improved patient outcomes and
significantly reduced costs.
So – what does this all add up to? In a rapidly changing healthcare environ-
ment, you are no longer only a wholesaler selling to institutions, but a retail
company that needs to earn and re-earn customer and partner loyalty.
Fortunately, today’s technology innovations provide a wide range of new
capabilities to help you evolve these critical relationships. Connectivity is
pervasive and high-quality video to virtually anywhere is a reality. Data
analytics provide a revolutionary new ability to anticipate and better service
your stakeholders. Integrated through a new approach known as the Inter-
net of Everything (IoE), these capabilities let you build a framework designed
to support a satisfied and loyal community of members and providers. IoE
enables the combination of people, data, processes, and things to create a
highly connected, highly visible web of information that helps health plans
drive better outcomes and member experiences.
Cisco in Today’s Payer Market
Cisco® offers a vision for Connected Health that includes exciting new op-
portunities for payers, enabling an approach that treats every member and
provider as an individual, in a system that knows who they are and anticipates
what they want. This allows you to provide an experience that is simpler and
more transparent, leading to a better quality of care.
Many visionary health plan providers are already moving to take advantage of
these opportunities. Can you afford to wait?
“Integrated through a new
approach known as the
Internet of Everything (IoE),
these capabilities let you
build a framework designed
to support a satisfied and
loyal community of members
and providers.”

3.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rights reserved. 2
The Shifting Population Demographic
By 2050, the number of people aged 65 and older is expected to more than
double worldwide, to about 1.5 billion, according to United Nations esti-
mates.1
This means that people 65 and over will soon outnumber children
under 5 for the first time.2
This aging population of Baby Boomers, along
with reforms such as the 2014 rollout of the US Affordable Care Act (ACA),
accountable care organizations (ACOs), and high deductible health plans
(HDHPs); a growing lack of primary care physicians, increased expectations
for service – these and many other market forces are profoundly disrupting
the US payer industry.
Bad Health, High Costs
As of 2014, the US ranked at or near the bottom in quality of health among
high-income countries.3
Our aging population is rife with chronic conditions
that need to be managed for better health and to reduce costs. A contribut-
ing factor is that many Americans aren’t good healthcare consumers – they
don’t get checkups, ignore chronic conditions, don’t adhere to medication
regimens, or visit the emergency room for minor illnesses and primary care.
They are also often accustomed to going to the nearest medical resource,
whether a doctor, lab, or clinic, without regard for the price.
However, today’s high-deductible health plans are forcing consumers to be
more proactive and price-conscious, giving you a chance to look for ways
to help members choose wisely. But in return, patients demand price trans-
parency and decision support. To succeed in this brave new world, you need
new and better ways to partner with members to help them manage their
own healthcare.
To do this, you need to conquer another problem: how to develop open and
trusting relationships with consumers. More than ever, members have other
choices in the marketplace and can leave if they become dissatisfied. Health
plan providers hear perpetual complaints about high costs, denied claims,
inadequate care, and perhaps most of all, frustration with administrative
issues. It is up to you to build better relationships with members that encour-
age them to stay loyal to your plan, while delivering services that are easy to
understand and trust.
The Doctor is Busy
Already, there are not enough primary care doctors to care for the popula-
tion of the US: A number of studies estimate that by 2020, the United States
will be short anywhere from 24,000 to 200,000 physicians.4
A complication
arising from this fact is that relationships between providers and payers are
often adversarial, with disagreements on issues ranging from reimbursement
to appropriate care. On the other hand, today’s movement toward ACOs, val-
ue-based contracting, and risk-sharing offers a new opportunity to transform
relationships with providers into a more integrated and synergistic approach.
1975 2000 2015 2025 2050
World Population Age Groups
Under age of 5
65 or older

4.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rights reserved. 3
Knowing Your Stakeholders
Relationships with consumers and providers can be greatly strengthened
by managing data at a level of granularity that helps you get to know each
at a more personal level. A key driver of Cisco’s vision is its ability to move
real-time data-gathering out to the edge of the network, leading to an accel-
erated responsiveness to a specific point of view. This allows member and
provider data to be gathered across multiple data sets and from all applicable
sources, with visibility into clinical, lab, prescription, claims, and other med-
ical records. It can also be gathered from online postings and social media
to help you better understand each person’s life, family, and activities. This
helps you respond more quickly to customers across all channels of engage-
ment, including contact centers, mobile phones, video conferencing, online,
social media, instant messaging, and in person.
Cisco’s solutions also provide new ways to share information and data
between doctors, clinics, hospitals, and pharmacists. Instead of awkwardly
navigating through medical records and relying on patient input, medical in-
formation is readily available directly throughout the network, giving providers
easy access to accurate and timely information that can help improve care
while reducing costs and waste. It can even help you create new value-add-
ed offerings: for example, developing loyalty programs similar to those of
today’s premier retailers.
Securing Medical Data
Of course, every kind of medical information, structured and unstructured,
must remain secure. Healthcare records are among the most hacked data in
the world: It is estimated that medical information is worth ten times more on
the black market than credit card data due to the potential for fraud, identity
theft, and abuse.5
To make matter worse, it may be years before you know
that your systems have been breached.
An important part of gaining your members’ trust is that they can trust your
security: In a 2012 study, it was found that more than half of users have un-
installed or decided to not install an app due to concerns about the privacy of
their personal information.6
Your connected members need to be safeguard-
ed by in-depth, cross-network security such as that from Cisco, which leads
the world in network and data protection.
Today’s Healthcare Consumer
• Aging Baby Boomers
• Chronic Conditions
• Demanding Convenience
• Tech-Savvy
• Active on Social Media

5.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rights reserved. 4
Connecting to the Connected Consumer
Today’s technologies give you the chance to develop relationships that per-
sonalize interactions – the concept known as “mass customization on an indi-
vidual basis.”7
Baby Boomer consumers are tech-savvy and demanding; they
are not tolerant of traditional processes and paperwork. They want immediate
access to doctors, lab results, and contact centers; they want price trans-
parency and supporting data to help make healthcare decisions. Overall, your
members increasingly expect a level of convenience in healthcare similar to
what is available in the retail and banking sectors8
– and they will use social
media to let everyone know whether or not they get it.
These expectations can lead to outstanding results. The more connected and
knowledgeable members are, the more likely they are to be engaged in their
health. Such consumers will readily connect with your health plan if you can
provide an immersive, personalized, interactive experience. By promoting a
health-driven partnership with each member, you achieve greater loyalty and
drive down healthcare costs.
Video is a Game Changer
Another key driver of Cisco’s vision of Connected Health is the dramatically
increased use of video. There’s no better way to provide a highly personal-
ized, immersive “care-at-a-distance” experience. With a focus on shorter
hospital stays and rigorous follow-through, video to the home is an obvious
yet underutilized tool. As well, the growing Baby Boomer member population
is motivating a shift to “aging in place” initiatives to help the elderly stay out
of institutionalized care. Approximately 20% of Americans today live in rural
areas where many do not have easy access to primary care or specialist ser-
vices.9
Even in large cities, some patients find it difficult to get to the doctor’s
office.
Health-focused video interactions resolve many of these problems. Through
technologies including videoconferencing, Cisco WebEx™, streaming me-
dia, and wireless communications, video is an ideal tool to help reduce costs
while improving convenience and access. A recent American Hospital As-
sociation survey showed that 70% of patients surveyed are comfortable with
communicating remotely with their health care providers.10
Based on video
technology, they benefit from faster access to care, more convenient man-
agement of conditions, and improved access to experts.
Video also provides significant benefits to providers. At a time when fewer
doctors service more patients, video appointments provide a time-effective
option for helping patients who are managing a known condition or to filter
those who may need to see a specialist or even to go immediately to the
emergency room. Remote appointments are also more cost-effective, mini-
mizing impact on medical staff and services.

6.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rights reserved. 5
As just one example, imagine the increasingly common scenario of an elderly
man, somewhat infirm, but determined to stay in his home as long as possi-
ble. He isn’t ill, but has had a stroke in the past and is not strong; family lives
at a distance, and can’t afford expensive in-home care. Video and sensing
devices may make it possible to help keep a remote eye on this patient, mak-
ing sure that he taking his medications, is eating regularly, and that his body
functions continue nominal. He is also able to meet with his doctor regularly
via video without the stress of scheduling, traveling to the office, and dealing
with a pharmacy.
The benefits of telehealth-related technologies are being increasingly rec-
ognized: In 2013, 52% of hospitals utilized video solutions, and another
10% were beginning the process of implementing these services.11
Cisco
and its partners provide both the solutions and the infrastructure to support
high-quality video across multiple channels, including mobile and handheld
devices.
Managing Social Media
For better or worse, social media is becoming a trusted resource in today’s
retail industries – which now include healthcare. A recent survey conduct-
ed by PricewaterhouseCoopers asked patients how likely they were to trust
health information posted online through social media. The results showed
that 60% of consumers are more likely to trust social media posts and activity
by doctors over any other group. This is followed by nurses (56%), and hos-
pitals (55%).12
You too must take advantage of social media to help manage your business
reputation and raise perceived value. Patient access to social media can be
both good and bad, but a wise payer organization uses it to increase brand
awareness and up-level public image. It’s time for you to ask, “How can so-
cial media make a difference in my customer service programs?”
Be Ready for the Future
As a health plan, it is vital for you to establish a roadmap for your organization
that supports connected health both now and into the future. This industry
and its technologies are advancing all the time, while the ability to connect
only continues to improve. Years from now the technology landscape will
have continued to evolve, but you will be well-positioned with an adaptable,
future-proof, connected environment. Cisco’s expert consulting services can
guide you into the future based on our extensive experience in the healthcare
industry. We help you focus on building solutions, not just buying the latest
technologies, to solve today’s and tomorrow’s problems.
“A recent American Hospital
Association survey showed
that 70% of patients sur-
veyed are comfortable with
communicating remotely
with their health care pro-
viders. Based on video
technology, they benefit
from faster access to care,
more convenient manage-
ment of conditions, and im-
proved access to experts.”

7.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All rights reserved. 6
Build Your Vision for Connected Healthcare
Connected health consumers will continue to make up a growing proportion
of your business every year. Now is the time to keep them by transforming
how these consumers perceive and engage with your health plan. At the
same time you have an opportunity to create an entirely new kind of relation-
ship with providers as you support your mutual customers at a very personal-
ized level.
The technology solutions that enable connected health are critical com-
ponents of today’s modern health plan to provide access to the right data,
enable the right intervention at the right time, through the right medium.
Benefits include:
• The ability to manage and service millions of members on a personalized
basis
• Close, trustful relationships with members and providers, engaging with
them throughout the care continuum as a partner rather than an adversary
• Data-driven decision-making to help manage cost and quality
• Managing your members as active and engaged participants in their own
wellness, leading to better health for them and lower costs for you
• A connected care environment that differentiates you in the marketplace
Next Steps
Incorporating the Internet of Everything, Cisco’s vision for Connected Health
encompasses people, processes, data, and devices to support high-quality,
cost-effective healthcare. Providing advanced data management and ana-
lytics, personalized member experiences, secure video, and strategic guid-
ance, Cisco offers a proven approach to educate, encourage, and enable the
consumer to engage in their own wellness.
To learn more about Cisco in the payer industry, please contact your Cisco
representative.

8.
The Rise of Connected Health:
Cisco in the Transforming Health Insurance Industry
7©2015 Cisco and all its affiliates. All right reserved.
References
1
“In a Graying Population, Business Opportunity,” New York Times (2/5/11)
2
Ibid.
3
America’s Health Rankings Annual Report, United Health Foundation (2014)
4
“Will There Be Enough Doctors?” by John Commins, HealthLeaders Magazine
5
“Healthcare Firms at Risk; Hackers Value Medical Records Over Credit Data,” by Caroline Humer
and Jim Finkle, Insurance Journal (9/26/14)
6
“Privacy and Data Management on Mobile Devices,” Pew Research Center (September 2012)
7
Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Indus-
try, by David C. Robertson (2013)
8
“New Health Economy,” PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute (April 2014)
9
“The Promise of Telehealth for Hospitals, Health Systems, and Their Communities,” American
Hospital Association (January 2015)
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
12
“The doctor will see you now: How the Internet and social media are changing healthcare,” by
Digital Trends (2013)
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco trademarks,
go to this URL: www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does
not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1110R)
Americas Headquarters
Cisco Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA
Asia Pacific Headquarters
Cisco Systems (USA) Pte. Ltd.
Singapore
Europe Headquarters
Cisco Systems International BV Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Cisco has more than 200 offices worldwide. Addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers are listed on the Cisco Website at www.cisco.com/go/offices.