Emerson Leaves CIGNA To Be Magellan's CIO

Jeff Emerson has left his position as president of CIGNA HealthCare's (Philadelphia) Mid-Atlantic Region to become CIO of Columbia, MD-based Magellan Health Services, Inc., the largest US provider of behavioral heath services. At CIGNA Emerson was responsible for all operations of the Mid-Atlantic division, which counted about two million members and $4 billion in premium revenue.

Emerson's career has been a mixture of technology and the healthcare business, including his having been the first CEO of telecommunications firm SkyTel in its start-up phase, and co-founder of Digital Insurance, a start-up Internet broker of health and related insurance plans. Before his post at CIGNA, he held an executive position at NYLCare (New York), the healthcare subsidiary of New York Life.

In his new provider-side technology position, Emerson will face the challenges associated with the huge number of members Magellan serves. "We want to place information and IT as a centerpiece of the value proposition for Magellan," he says. "What that means is taking the enormous stores of data that we have for 70 million members and producing actionable information for our clinicians and customers so that they can improve the quality and cost of care."

Also on Emerson's plate is an initiative to consolidate the legacy systems Magellan has as the result of acquisitions. "We want to reduce the number from a half dozen to one end-state system," he says. "This will increase our efficiencies and productivity and reduce administrative expenses for our customers."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio