Leading health insurance company Anthem Inc has announced its entry into healthcare innovation through its Anthem Digital Incubator program. The insurer aims to provide a platform to digital healthcare companies and startups working to give “novel solutions” to consumers.
According to Anthem, companies participating in the program get funding opportunities, mentoring, access to Anthem’s Digital Data Sandbox, and “path to market” support.
Point of view
- On the need for the incubator, Anthem’s Staff Vice President of Digital Care Delivery Kate Merton said, “This initiative matches Anthem’s knowledge, experiences and resources with innovative and nimble entrepreneurs who share the desire to deliver personalized, proactive and predictive healthcare solutions that help improve a person’s health and wellbeing.”
- The initiative, according to Merton, invites entrepreneurs and recently formed companies into the program and offers them a platform to develop and deploy “their novel solutions for healthcare consumers”.
- Anthem enjoys a huge market share as it serves over 107 million people. This includes its own 43 million health plan members. It’s large client base allows Anthem to provide the resources and expertise for innovation.
- The company believes innovation is the need of the hour given that the world continues to grapple with a pandemic of an unprecedented scale, and the increased medical care cost over the past few years. To achieve this, the company seeks to promote early entrepreneurs.
- Healthcare sector is already witnessing multiple technological advancements like artificial intelligence services, personalized care models and digitization of care. To take it further, established healthcare companies with all the required resources should support innovators. Supporting entrepreneurs through an incubator model is a resourceful and agile way to promote innovation.
