Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Hires Dr. Thomas Diller as Vice President of Population Health and Quality Transformation

Oct. 29, 2018

BATON ROUGE – Thomas Diller, M.D., a physician with more than 20 years of experience in medical management and care transformation, joins Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana as vice president of Population Health and Quality Transformation.

Diller will report directly to Blue Cross Chief Medical Officer Vindell Washington, M.D. In his role, Diller will oversee the insurer’s quality improvement programs and efforts toward meeting set measures for health plan accreditation.

He will work with the Blue Cross Clinical and Care Management staff to support network providers and engage them in care transformation activities that will help them succeed in alternative payment programs, notably the insurer’sQuality Blue programs.

“Our focus in today’s healthcare world is on helping our members stay well and rewarding providers for the value they bring to our shared customers, and we’re glad to have someone with Thomas’ experience on our team,” Washington said. “He understands the system both as a healthcare provider and from the administrative side, and he’s led many innovative efforts to drive changes that improve the overall quality of healthcare delivery.” 

Diller is an internal medicine physician who has extensive experience in improving healthcare quality through cultural transformation and process improvements. He has published several research papers on quality and patient safety topics, frequently speaks on high reliability and patient safety, and is black-belt trained in Lean Six Sigma and change management.

He comes to Blue Cross from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, where he was executive director of the Institute for Patient Safety and an associate professor in the School of Public Health.  Previously, he served as the system chief medical officer for Christus Health, a multi-national health system with more than 40 hospitals, and as vice president of Quality and Patient Safety for Greenville Health System.

Diller earned his doctor of medicine degree from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and has a master’s degree in medical management from the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University.  He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Medical Quality and the Certifying Commission in Medical Management.

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is committed to our mission to improve the health and lives of Louisianians. We invest both time and money in the communities we serve, supporting the health and wellbeing of Louisianians through more than 200 charitable organizations.

With our subsidiaries, HMO Louisiana and Southern National Life, we provide group and individual health insurance plans, life and disability insurance, group voluntary products and administrative services to one out of four Louisiana residents. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana also provides Medicare supplement and Medicare Advantage plans and is a partner in offering the Healthy Blue Medicaid Managed care plan. Louisiana is the only state where we operate, with offices in every major region to serve our customers.

Founded in New Orleans in 1934, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is a tax-paying non-profit health insurer. We are a private mutual company, owned by our policyholders, with an independent Louisiana Board of Directors and no shareholders. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.