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Home / Washington Business - March 2006 / Profile - Gubby Barlow: Bringing Health Care Into the 21st Century |
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Profile - Gubby Barlow: Bringing Health Care Into the 21st Century |
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Written On: March 2006 |
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Written By: by AWB Staff |
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When growing up in Bloemfontein, South Africa, becoming the CEO of a $3 billion dollar corporation was not something H.R. Brereton "Gubby" Barlow anticipated. He occupied himself playing water polo and rugby and swam for the swim team. "I know it's hard to believe, but I didn’t see a television until I was 26 years old," Barlow said.
He attended the University of Cape Town and received his master's of business administration degree while working for Deloitte & Touche in South Africa. While working for Deloitte, Barlow immigrated as a partner to the United States in 1987. "Public accounting taught me to take an enterprise view of every organization. You quickly have to appreciate what drives a business and focus the resources of the company in the areas that matter most," Barlow said.
Barlow joined California-based Health Net in 1991 as vice president of finance. In healthcare finance, he discovered a convergence between analytic challenge and personal mission. "Health insurance is highly complex and analytical," Barlow said, 'but in the final analysis people buy health insurance for one simple reason—peace of mind."
Barlow took on a new challenge when Premera BlueCross recruited him as its new chief financial officer in 1997, following several years of operating losses. He was named chief operating officer three weeks later, and president and chief executive officer in 2000—less than three years after that.
"I accepted the offer to become CEO of Premera because I care deeply about this company, its mission, and the customers we serve," Barlow said. "By 1999 we completed a financial turnaround. The next challenge was to retool our products, services, and technology to serve customers into the future."
Beginning in 2000, Barlow decided to bring the company into the 21st century by leading a $125 million retooling of Premera's products, services and technology platform. "No company takes on a complete system change without a high degree of risk, and we certainly had that," Barlow said. The result was Premera's Dimensions suite of products and services, launched in 2002. Dimensions gives Premera customers choices to manage health care coverage and costs, flexibility in selecting networks and benefits, secure and easy-to-use online services, and around-the-clock access to information that members, employers, physicians and brokers can use. It also makes it possible for the company to adapt quickly as the market evolves.
Barlow didn't stop there. Insurers typically convert all existing customers to a new system automatically. Premera let the market decide the value of Dimensions by initially offering its new products side by side with existing ones. "The response has been gratifying," Barlow said. Today, more than 1.4 million Premera members have enrolled themselves on Dimensions products.
The market has changed dramatically in the past several years, but Premera's mission remains steadfast, "to deliver peace of mind to our members about their health care coverage."
"Today we're very focused on two goals: better health and more sustainable costs for our members," Barlow said. "As a company, we will contribute to those goals by providing tools and resources members can use to make more cost-conscious decisions. By supporting physicians and members in improving the quality of medical care delivered. And by supporting our members at every stage of health with programs and resources that help them manage their health cost-effectively."
"Nobody can do that alone, but I am optimistic about the long-term state of healthcare and healthcare financing," Barlow said. "It's optimism born of necessity."
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