Mona Siddiqui on Humana’s Evolution to a Healthcare Company

Dr. Mona Siddiqui says she loves solving problems at the
intersection of health policy, strategy, data and operations.
After earning a medical degree from Johns Hopkins, a master’s in
public health with a focus on quantitative methods and data
analysis from Harvard, and a master’s in engineering from
Stanford, Mona has dedicated her career towards using this unique
skillset to improve healthcare.

She served as a resident at George Washington University
Hospital, Innovator-in-Residence at CMMI, and a member of the
White House National Science and Technology Council, among other
prominent roles. She also became the first ever Chief Data
Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services where she
led the effort to connect the nation's health care data through a
new technology infrastructure, organizational management of data
as an asset, and an enterprise training program for data science
and AI. In her current role as SVP of enterprise clinical
strategy and quality at Humana, she’s applying the vast knowledge
and experience she’s gained towards one main objective: creating
a better consumer experience in healthcare.

During her conversation with Keith Figlioli on this episode of
Healthcare is Hard, Mona shared her thoughts on several timely
topics including:



The critical, yet unglamorous work of organizing data.
Mona recounts how she experienced the pain of not having access
to the right information at the right time throughout her
career and in her initial role at HHS where she was tasked with
thinking about new solutions in the opioid epidemic. She and
her team realized the enormous amount of disconnected data at
other government organizations such as the Department of
Justice and the Department of Labor, and began integrating it
to develop a new and unique lens into the challenges they
faced. She talks about how infrastructure issues like this are
not glamorous, but create incredible opportunities to make a
meaningful and lasting impact.


Humana’s evolution into a healthcare company. Over the
past few years, Humana has forged partnerships with providers
like Oak Street and Iora Health, acquired organizations
including Kindred, the nation’s largest provider of at-home
healthcare services, and grown many other new initiatives
organically. As its track record demonstrates, Humana is
considering all options in its transition to a “payvider” and
remaining focused on the key objective of creating better
consumer experiences and improving healthcare outcomes. Mona
discusses how this long-term evolution is still in progress,
while notably referring to Humana now as a “healthcare
company.”


Connecting in-person and digital experiences. With the
digital transformation of healthcare, and especially
advancements made over the past two years, technology is now an
inherent part of consumer experiences in healthcare. Mona
remembers her time as a clinician and how she often didn’t have
the right infrastructure to give patients the support they
needed. She talks about how Humana is in a unique position to
think about a holistic set of experiences – not just for
patients, put for providers too – and how to create them.


Partnering with early-stage companies. For startups
looking to make a difference in healthcare, Mona discusses what
Humana is looking for in its partnerships and how to best work
together. In clinical areas, she advises that Humana’s largest
focus is addressing the needs of the sickest people. She also
points to the need for solutions that bring caregivers and
families into the conversation, and those that create
integrated experiences in home and community-based settings.
Overall, the goal is to become more efficient at providing the
right care at the right time.



To hear Mona and Keith talk about these topics and more, listen
to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.