Managed Care - November 2008 - (Page 38)

Q&A A Conversation With Martin Sepulveda, MD Keep Employers In a Primary Role The man credited with health care innovation at IBM warns against any overhaul that would make companies disinclined to participate edited with saving IBM millions of dollars in health care costs through wellness and health management programs, Martin Sepulveda, MD, then accepted the challenge of leading the company’s overall health benefits programs globally. Today, as IBM’s top physician executive and vice president for integrated health services, he draws on wide-ranging experience and IBM’s leverage to work toward health care reform — including a greater emphasis on primary care — in the United States and around the world. Sepulveda, who has been with IBM since 1985, earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American studies at Yale University and an MD and a master of public health degree at Harvard University. He completed residencies at the University of California San Francisco and at the Centers for Disease Control in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. He also completed a fellowship in internal medicine at the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. He spoke recently with MANAGED CARE Editor John Marcille. MANAGED CARE: How has your job at IBM evolved? SEPULVEDA: My role is to advance IBM’s business success through the health of the workforce. That hasn’t really changed for as long as I’ve been here, but the territory over which I’ve been privileged to do that has grown significantly over the course of my career here. MC: You are overseeing more activity? SEPULVEDA: The growth has been twofold. I have Cr assumed responsibility for the health of our workforce worldwide in terms of fitness, productivity, and resilience, and I have folded in the health insurance coverage aspect of the company’s investments in its workforce. That has been an enormous challenge. MC: Has the growth in the scope of your responsibilities been driven by your success in health management and wellness? SEPULVEDA: Yes. It’s a consequence of the success that my team had early on in workplace safety, injury prevention, and health promotion in the United States and then outside of the United States. When, at the turn of the century, prices in health care really began to manifest in our premiums and costs, we recognized the opportunity to leverage the kinds of processes and skills and the perspective that my team had. Having me take on health benefits was a natural progression toward the culture of health that we’ve been working on for decades at this company. MC: What did you learn globally with wellness that you brought to your expanded position? SEPULVEDA: We have been a global company for decades, but in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we opened or greatly expanded manufacturing operations in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. I was at the forefront of that transition to ensure that as we came into those parts of the world the emphasis on health in our workplaces was identical to that in Western developed countries. That was a big challenge given that in some coun- 38 MANAGED CARE / NOVEMBER 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managed Care - November 2008

Managed Care - November 2008 Editor’s Memo Contents News and Commentary Legislation & Regulation Letters Medication Management Compensation Monitor Do It Yourself for Less Biomarkers Promise, but Do They Deliver? Oncologists Complain About Drug Payment Consider Blood Pressure Self-Monitoring Q&A: Keep Industry in the Game Formulary Files Plan Watch Tomorrow’s Medicine Outlook Respiratory Syncytial Virus Managed Care Considerations Contents Continuing Education Objectives RSV Disease in the Pediatric Population In the Trenches RSV Infection in the Adult Population Health Plan Medical Director Health Plan Pharmacy Director RSV Issues and Solutions Assessment/Evaluation/Certificate Request Post-Test

Managed Care - November 2008

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