Cardinal Health Inc.'s in-house innovation and software development lab has grown to 350 employees globally – and grown in importance within the $162.5 billion company.
Fuse is building technology to spur the growth of every operating unit of the Dublin-based healthcare giant, making operations more efficient and adding to its line of services – historically a higher-margin business than distribution.
"We are a new product development engine for all the growth businesses inside Cardinal Health," Senior Vice President and CTO Ray Bajaj said. "It’s a startup inside a Fortune 15 company."
Fuse also is outgrowing its space in the Dublin retail center where it first moved 50 tech employees in 2014, even with multiple satellite offices and a hybrid of in-office and remote work, Bajaj said in an interview.
Bajaj joined Cardinal in November 2019 after eight years at Capital One, taking Fuse leadership as one of his duties.
Fuse's founding leader, Brent Stutz, in April was named senior vice president and general manager of Outcomes, which Cardinal launched by uniting several businesses. The "digital ecosystem" of platforms and software – developed by Fuse and purchased – connects a network of pharmacies, manufacturers and insurers to improve access to medication and ensure patients take the drugs as prescribed.
If that sounds like a competitor to Columbus' CoverMyMeds, owned by Cardinal's larger rival McKesson Corp., that's because it is.
"There is enough room for different companies to help with patient outcomes," Bajaj said.
At Capital One, Bajaj was head of the Garage, a similar innovation hub that built software such as the lender's Auto Navigator car-buying app. In a career focused on financial services, he also was a chief technology architect at Bank of America. He has a master's degree in technology management from Columbia University in New York and an MBA from Michigan State University.
The digital revolution finally coming to healthcare made him responsive to a recruiting call from Cardinal.
"I have been fortunate to lead a high-performing team in a very commercially successful manner," Bajaj said. "I was drawn to the mission of healthcare.
"This was a great opportunity to use technology in a completely different industry that makes a difference in people’s lives."
Cardinal (NYSE:CAH) doesn't report Fuse's revenue and income separately, because the division builds software for other units throughout the corporation rather than directly to customers.
For example, it's building tracking systems for every product from manufacturer to delivery point to make shipping faster and more accurate. That includes using blockchain to trace the movement of controlled substances including opioids. (Cardinal has agreed to pay state and local governments $6.7 billion over 18 years for its share of settling thousands of lawsuits against the three largest distributors for opioid shipments prior to 2017.)
Fuse built automated medication reminders for the Outcomes business that sends some 200 million texts to patients a year, and flagged 1.9 million cases for pharmacists to review. This spring it built an immunization scheduling app for independent pharmacies facing a crush of demand for Covid-19 vaccines, at the request of a Medicine Shoppe pharmacist in Texas.
"We are in the center of the healthcare supply chain, and we can unlock new products and services to make healthcare much more efficient," Bajaj said. "The software Fuse is creating, it is making a difference in patients’ and providers’ lives."
Bajaj, his wife and two daughters have moved from Dallas.
"I love the vibrancy of Columbus," he said. "It’s a very warm town – the people are so Midwest nice. I want to create memories."
