Health insurance giant and care services provider Humana has joined the Consumer Technology Association, marking the first time a payer has joined the association.
CTA is an organization with more than 2,200 members in the U.S., focused on bringing a collective advocacy voice to the future of consumer technology. Humana will join CTA’s digital health membership, which includes Fitbit, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung and Validic.
“Humana is advocating and acting on the principal that consumers should have access and control over their health data,” Heather Cox, chief digital health & analytics officer, said in a statement. “It makes sense that we would join CTA, an organization whose initiatives align with our own to empower patients with their own health information and guard individual’s right to select who has access to their record.”
Last year, Humana launched a new digital health and analytics initiative to advance the company’s integrated care delivery mode. It named Cox to lead the new business line, which she said aimed to utilize AI and other innovative technologies to provide better care. Former Humana CMO Roy Beveridge, MD, also expressed how Humana is embracing AI in an interview with AI in Healthcare earlier this year.
CTA has also boosted its AI efforts with consumer-based technology health solutions that can improve health outcomes. The organization works with policymakers, including CMS, FDA and ONC, and advances research on remote patient monitoring and digital therapeutics.
“CTA welcomes Humana’s first-of-its-kind perspective to our association,” Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CTA, said in a statement. “Technology has the power to give patients personalized care and more treatment options, while dramatically reducing costs and improving outcomes. Unfettered access to privacy-protected patient data means they can make smarter treatment choices, curbing growing medical costs. We are thrilled Humana shares this vision for the future.”
Amy joined TriMed Media as a Senior Writer for HealthExec after covering home care for three years. When not writing about all things healthcare, she fulfills her lifelong dream of becoming a pirate by sailing in regattas and enjoying rum. Fun fact: she sailed 333 miles across Lake Michigan in the Chicago Yacht Club "Race to Mackinac."