DISCOURSE
which is one of the reasons we acquired Visionworks last year ( in ) October . ( This was ) our largest acquisition for this company ever — 700 retail locations around the country — and created a differentiator for us in our network because we can now deliver a consistent retail experience and then , through our programs working with private practice doctors , connect our members back to private practice doctors , if that ’ s what they ’ re looking for .
The third and last major area of focus for us as a company , with all the changes happening , is around technology and technology disruptors . … Especially with what ’ s happening with ( COVID-19 ), telehealth is accelerating quickly . So how do we connect our private practice doctors to deliver telehealth capabilities for their patients ? We have partnered with a number of companies to help do that . We are looking at our customization of glasses and lenses and even personalized benefits for their insurance . So how do people get the value out of their insurance plans in times when there seems to just be constant change from a technology perspective ? We had The Shop … which was our innovation center in Midtown ( Sacramento ). We ’ ve expanded that now … ( with ) the Global Innovation Center … in The Cannery office park . ( It ) has four key tracks that they ’ re focusing on , and it ’ s really exciting to see how we get to impact vision care going forward with some of our innovation that we can implement , not just here at VSP , but across the industry .
Can you tell me more about those four key tracks ?
The first key track is around the digital supply chain ( and ) how fast or how disconnected the supply chain can be for people to get their eyewear . How do we work with doctors to help create this digital supply chain where we can replenish frames , and we can replenish their lenses and get quicker service back to those members ? Again , consumers want things now , and they want it customized for them . Eyefinity , our software company , ( and ) working with doctors ’ practices , helps us do that .
The second ( track ) is around being health-focused and looking at alternative delivery care models . This is where we get into telemedicine a little bit , also how we connect with companies like Livongo ( which merged with Teladoc Health in November ) and help with connecting eye care back to health care . Some people are not aware … that eye care could actually be an early detector of critical diseases , like diabetes and high-blood pressure and , obviously , other eye diseases , like glaucoma and cataracts . ( By ) partnering and working with Livongo , we can use our data , and they can use their data , ( and ) we can share back and forth just for the possibility of identifying prediabetics or diabetics . …
The third ( track ) is around personalized vision and using the data we have available to us — we have hundreds of millions of claims records over the years — that we can ( use to ) get an idea of what consumers want : What frame type , size , shape , what kind of lenses do people need ? How do we look at new innovations and bring those forward , whether it ’ s different coatings for antireflectiveness or just new capabilities out there ? So using data to help us maximize the value back to VSP clients and our doctors and our members . The ( fourth ) track that we ’ ve been in for quite a while now is around smart glasses . We had a product called Level that we launched a number of years ago , and now we ’ re taking a look at partnering and working with other companies around providing smart glasses .
Tell me about VSP ’ s response to COVID-19 .
As early as February , we started taking a very conservative approach to limiting travel and adding personal safety guidelines for employees . … That week in March ( when Gov . Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order ), we transitioned 95 percent of our office employees to remote in less than five days , and we did this with no disruption to our clients , our members or doctors . … We shut down our Visionworks stores . Let me tell you , that was painful to think about 700 retail locations , and we ’ re going to shut that down with no revenue and still have costs . … But we knew we had to put our employees ’ safety first , make sure that we had personal protection equipment , safety protocols in place . Honestly , as financially difficult as it was for the company , it was a no-brainer to make sure our employees were going to be safe through COVID .
We wanted to make sure that we ’ re supporting our clients , our members . … We expanded our access to essential and emergency medical eye care insurance services for members and dependents for all of our members . This is something that normally companies would add onto their policies , and we just expanded ( it ) across the board . … What we saw is that people were ( having ) limited access getting into the emergency room , and that eye doctors had an opportunity to provide some of that essential eye care … ( for ) things like eye trauma , sudden changes to the vision , conjunctivitis . Let me give you a real-life example . … There is a mother that called in ; she noticed her young daughter was rubbing her eye uncontrollably for days . This is during the early stages of the pandemic , and she wasn ’ t going to get into the ( emergency room ) because during those days , the ER was turning people away . She was able to get care from her local VSP network doctor . The doctor found this small speck of metal in the little girl ’ s eye and was able to remove it . People think you have to go to the ER for that , and our eye doctors had the capability and the training and the expertise to do this .
( Our doctors aren ’ t ) employees of VSP , but they are part of our network , and we were founded by doctors , and that ’ s our roots , and part of the purpose of this organization is how do we support the medical community , support the doctors in our network ? … We ’ ve got all these private practice doctors around the country , 40,000 around the country , saying , “ We need help with PPE .” We pivoted our manufacturing . We made shields and got those deployed to our doctors as quickly as possible , free of charge . … We also used our procurement — because you can imagine the power of VSP with 15,000 employees , 700 retail locations , manufacturing facil-
22 comstocksmag . com | December 2020