Reporting from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island’s Vendor Inclusion Showcase

Michael Lovelace - VP of Strategic Growth

October 2, 2026

I am taking a brief pause from our Beyond the Dashboard series to reflect on a recent example of how engagement can help move innovation from an idea to a practical business conversation. On September 29, Ann Teschendorf and I were honored to represent Covalent Resource Group at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island's (BCBSRI) 2026 Vendor Inclusion Showcase and Supplier Rising Awards in Providence.

CRG was one of 12 businesses invited to participate. BCBSRI designed the showcase around feedback from its associates and selected suppliers whose capabilities aligned with the areas its teams wanted to explore, including AI and automation, customer and member experience, data analytics, cybersecurity, technology, integration and wellness.

In her LinkedIn recap of the event, Doris De Los Santos described the showcase as an example of what ENGAGEMENT looks like and wrote, "This is where the conversation gets real."

Doris' observation captured what made the event valuable. The room was built for questions, new ideas, unexpected connections and the discovery of capabilities that participants had not known were available.  The CRG team expresses our gratitude to Doris for inviting us to participate in this event

Why Engagement Matters

Doris made an important point about supplier inclusion: It becomes real when organizations open the door, create connections and give prospective partners an opportunity to demonstrate what they can contribute. That process broadens access to ideas while helping buyers evaluate potential partners against real business priorities.

The showcase created that opportunity. BCBSRI associates could speak directly with suppliers, ask how their capabilities might apply to current needs and discover approaches they may not have previously considered. Suppliers could listen to the people closest to the work and better understand where a solution might fit. That exchange gave both sides useful context that a capability statement alone cannot provide.

Coordinated Action to Improve Member Experience and Reduce Healthcare Costs

At the showcase, CRG demonstrated how Operational Intelligence connects fragmented information, adds business context and uses AI to coordinate action across the member, customer service and Operations experience, delivering the right recommendation at the point of interaction.

In our scenario, a member with Type 2 diabetes contacted their health plan about a claim following an urgent care visit. Using information already known about the member, our solution recommended, through both the member portal and the customer service representative, that the member schedule a follow-up appointment with their primary care physician and participate in the Type 2 Diabetes Wellness Program. When the member could not enroll through the portal, the issue was flagged to Operations, where it could be assigned, investigated and tracked through resolution, helping the member while also addressing a potential barrier affecting others.

This connected response aligns with BCBSRI’s objectives of improving the member experience and reducing healthcare costs. The member receives timely, personalized guidance; the representative can provide informed support; and Operations can resolve the underlying source of friction.

Unlike a dashboard that simply reports what happened, Operational Intelligence carries the context across the organization, recommends what to do next and measures outcomes such as follow-up appointment completion, program enrollment, repeat contacts and resolution of the enrollment issue.

From Ideation to Action

• Start with a real workflow. A specific operational problem gives business and technology leaders something concrete to assess and creates a manageable path for validating data, integrations, responsibilities and outcomes.
• Make the approach visible. A demonstration helps people understand how a capability changes their work and gives them a basis for asking better questions.
• Connect insight to ownership. Information has limited value if no one knows who should act. The workflow should identify the responsible person or team and preserve visibility until the issue is resolved.
• Measure resolution. Detection is only the beginning. Organizations should also measure how quickly the issue was assigned, whether the corrective action worked and whether the condition occurred again.

What the BCBSRI Event Reinforced

The BCBSRI showcase demonstrated why engagement deserves a deliberate place in the innovation process. It allows an organization to connect an identified need with people who may offer a useful perspective, relevant experience or a different approach. It also gives suppliers a clearer understanding of the environment in which their ideas must operate.

Thank you to Doris De Los Santos and the BCBSRI team for creating the conditions for those conversations, and to the associates who asked questions and shared their perspectives. We left Providence encouraged by the connections we made and the opportunity to continue exploring where Operational Intelligence can address a focused, measurable business problem.

A Question for You

What business problem would become easier to solve if the right people could see the same context and act on it together? I would welcome your perspective and examples of workflows that are ready to move from fragmented information to coordinated action.

Learn how CRG helps organizations connect information, insight and action through practical enterprise AI: Explore CRG's Generative AI Platform

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