Company: Wellpoint Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Company Description: WellPoint, Inc. is the largest publicly traded commercial health benefits company in the United States. WellPoint, Inc. is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and serves its members as the Blue Cross licensee for California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin..
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best MIS & Systems Executive

Nomination Title: Ron J. Ponder, Executive Vice President and CIO

   1. Tell the story about what this nominee achieved in 2004 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

     As chief information officer for WellPoint Inc., Ron Ponder is responsible for
developing and implementing WellPoint’s information technology strategy and the
oversight of centralized operations and standard practices. He leads an executive
committee that ensures the development and implementation of comprehensive
technology vision to support WellPoint’s business strategies.

     In 2004, Ponder, with company-wide support, ensured that the medical
industry was, at the very least, one step closer to fully embracing the digital
world.

     Undoubtedly, it was one very large step.

     In efforts to improve connectivity in the medical community, improve patient
safety and service, achieve greater efficiency and realize cost savings for
America’s health care system, WellPoint launched a technology initiative that
placed new technologies into the hands of approximately 19,000 physicians - free
of charge.

     Contracting network physicians in California, Georgia, Missouri and Wisconsin
chose from either a prescription improvement package, featuring a hand-held
electronic prescribing unit to electronically generate prescriptions, or a
paperwork reduction package, which armed physicians with a fully-loaded professional grade Dell computer to facilitate on-line communication, including paperless submission of claims.

     Ponder envisioned the project as a way to jumpstart e-prescribing and help to
reduce the seemingly never-ending amount of paperwork currently plaguing the
medical community. At a cost of $40 million, WellPoint did not view the initiative
from the traditional bottom-line point of view, but believes it will ultimately
increase physician efficiency and reduce medical errors, thereby eventually improving the health care industry as a whole.

     The goal is to enhance the technological capabilities of providers and offer a
mobility solution through computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and
e-commerce with a package that can be easily adopted by the medical
community and integrated with current IT efforts. The initiative also serves as
great example of the collaborative cooperation in the technology industry, as both
Microsoft and Dell committed to participating in the project.

     According to industry studies, adoption of existing information technology
could save the health care system a total of $125 billion in unnecessary
paperwork, not to mention life-savings and improvements in patient safety by giving
caregivers access to needed information when and where they need it. WellPoint’s
project is a key step in realizing these cost savings, and perhaps one of the first
steps at creating an overall electronic infrastructure. As a result, several other
associations have been established between health care providers and technology
companies. For example, insurance provider Blue Cross/Blue Shield has
contacted Dell, Microsoft and Cisco to explore a similar solution for its
physicians.

     Ponder continues to stake out battles for improving the enormously complex
apparatus that makes up the healthcare system in the United States.  There is
little doubt that his talent, foresight and achievements will continue to benefit
WellPoint, the healthcare industries and the American public.

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: List each link on a separate line, begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.website.com]:

Healthcare IT News 
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/asp/WELLPOINT_0204.asp

ComputerWorld
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,89117,00.html

Eweek
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1540314,00.asp

Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/business/forbes/2004/0607/049.html

CIO Today 
http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=25706

Insurance Technology
http://www.insurancetech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=32900001

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about this nominee:

     Ron Ponder was one of the first executives worldwide to hold a CIO position
and soon established himself as one of the preeminent practitioners.  As FedEx’s
first CIO, Ponder helped create a business and systems strategy that changed the
world of package delivery and transportation.

     The ability to blend and create networks, technologies and systems to go hand-
in-hand with the business strategies is Ponder's trademark. This is evident with
his work at Federal Express, AT&T, Sprint, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and WellPoint Inc. Ponder holds a doctorate in Information Services and Operations Research, and was recently named among ComputerWorld's 100 Premier IT Executives.