Latest news with #OptumIndia
Mint
7 days ago
- Health
- Mint
Innovative Healthcare: The Synergy of Technology and Business Operations
The global healthcare sector stands at a crossroads. Rising costs, inequitable access, and inconsistent outcomes persist even as technological advancements promise solutions. Yet innovation in healthcare isn't merely about adopting cutting-edge tools—it demands reimagining systems through a lens of human-centered design, strategic collaboration, and measurable impact. Optum India, a global capability center of UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune 4 company, exemplifies how organizations can fuse technology, operations, and empathy to create connected, outcome-focused ecosystems. An interesting conversation was led by Gautam Srinivasan where the leaders from Optum India, discussed how they are fostering innovation to enable a more responsive, insightful, and inclusive health care ecosystem. Rohit Agarwal , Senior Vice President – Transformation, Innovation and Enablement , Senior Vice President – Transformation, Innovation and Enablement Abhishek Kumar , Senior Vice President – Operations , Senior Vice President – Operations Surinder Singh , Senior Vice President – Operations , Senior Vice President – Operations Madhuri Raya, Vice President – Software Engineering Together, they delved into the pressing challenges that healthcare is currently facing, the crucial role that technology plays, and how the innovative culture at Optum is driving better care at a lower cost and on a larger scale. Healthcare's "triple aim" framework—reducing costs, expanding access, and improving outcomes—remains a universal challenge. Healthcare expenditure is further compounded by fast-growing aging population and increasing administrative complexities. Meanwhile, rural and underserved communities globally face persistent access gaps. Telehealth emerged as a lifeline during the pandemic, yet questions linger about equity and quality. Surinder Singh underscores that outcomes hinge on timely interventions, data-driven protocols, and continuous monitoring. 'Technology enables real-time management of adherence and outcomes, but its potential remains untapped without systemic alignment,' he notes. The lesson? Siloed solutions fail; integrated strategies that address all three pillars simultaneously are non-negotiable. At its core, healthcare thrives on the clinician-patient relationship. Yet physicians are often burdened with administrative tasks, diverting time from patient care. Abhishek Kumar highlights the shift to value-based models as pivotal to solve these challenges: 'Systems, billing, and tech must empower clinicians, not burden them.' Kumar further added, 'This requires redefining workflows. Automation tools that streamline documentation, coupled with interoperable platforms, can free clinicians to focus on empathy-driven care. The result? Enhanced patient trust and better health outcomes.' Madhuri Raya emphasizes that technology's role is to 'simplify complexity, not add noise.' Remote monitoring, AI-driven diagnostics, and wearable devices expand access and enable preventive care. However, their efficacy depends on interoperability—a seamless exchange of data across platforms. Raya said, 'For us, technology is not about building another app! It's about connecting people to their care teams, payers to providers, and ultimately connecting a disconnected health system so that it works better for the people it was created to serve.' Optum's approach prioritizes actionable insights over data overload. For instance, predictive analytics identify high-risk patients, enabling early interventions. This aligns with Rohit Agarwal's vision of 'consumer empowerment through hyper-personalized care journeys.' Innovation cannot thrive in isolation. Rohit Agarwal outlines four strategic trends shaping Optum's roadmap: 1. Consumer Empowerment: Tailored care journeys using behavioral. 2. Wellness-Driven Models: IoT and real-time data for proactive health management. 3. Interoperable Platforms: Bridging claims, clinical care, and pharmacy systems. 4. Value-Based Incentives: Rewarding quality over volume. The iNNOV8 program at Optum embeds innovation into organizational DNA. Initiatives like Bright Ideas (crowdsourcing frontline solutions) and iFactor (a Shark Tank-style accelerator) foster agility. 'Execution at scale turns ideas into value,' Agarwal asserts. Breaking down silos between technology and operations is critical. Kumar advocates co-locating teams to foster empathy and rapid iteration. For example, the 'Sit with Ops' initiative at Optum allows tech teams to witness frontline challenges firsthand. This collaboration extends to capability mapping—streamlining processes from claims to clinical care. 'The closer the partnership, the better the outcomes in experience, efficiency, and cost,' Kumar explains. Innovation must deliver tangible results. Singh stresses metrics like adoption rates, Net Promoter Score, and ROI. 'If it doesn't improve experiences or outcomes, it's not innovation,' he states. Optum pilots solutions rigorously, scaling only those that enhance care delivery and operational efficiency. To future-proof healthcare, leaders must: Align Incentives: Define shared goals across tech and operations. Upskill Continuously: Invest in reskilling (e.g., Optum Tech University's agile and AI courses). Co-Create with Consumers: Use patient feedback to refine solutions. As Raya notes, 'Reskilling builds for tomorrow, not just today.' The future of healthcare lies in interconnected, patient-first ecosystems. Optum India's model—rooted in collaboration, empathy, and strategic innovation—demonstrates that systemic change is achievable. By prioritizing human connections alongside technology, organizations can deliver care that's not only efficient and affordable but profoundly humane. Watch the full discussion here.
Hindustan Times
7 days ago
- Health
- Hindustan Times
Innovative Healthcare: The Synergy of Technology and Business Operations
The global healthcare sector stands at a crossroads. Rising costs, inequitable access, and inconsistent outcomes persist even as technological advancements promise solutions. Yet innovation in healthcare isn't merely about adopting cutting-edge tools—it demands reimagining systems through a lens of human-centered design, strategic collaboration, and measurable impact. Optum India, a global capability center of UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune 4 company, exemplifies how organizations can fuse technology, operations, and empathy to create connected, outcome-focused ecosystems. An interesting conversation was led by Gautam Srinivasan where the leaders from Optum India, discussed how they are fostering innovation to enable a more responsive, insightful, and inclusive health care ecosystem. The panel featured: Together, they delved into the pressing challenges that healthcare is currently facing, the crucial role that technology plays, and how the innovative culture at Optum is driving better care at a lower cost and on a larger scale. Healthcare's "triple aim" framework—reducing costs, expanding access, and improving outcomes—remains a universal challenge. Healthcare expenditure is further compounded by fast-growing aging population and increasing administrative complexities. Meanwhile, rural and underserved communities globally face persistent access gaps. Telehealth emerged as a lifeline during the pandemic, yet questions linger about equity and quality. Surinder Singh underscores that outcomes hinge on timely interventions, data-driven protocols, and continuous monitoring. 'Technology enables real-time management of adherence and outcomes, but its potential remains untapped without systemic alignment,' he notes. The lesson? Siloed solutions fail; integrated strategies that address all three pillars simultaneously are non-negotiable. At its core, healthcare thrives on the clinician-patient relationship. Yet physicians are often burdened with administrative tasks, diverting time from patient care. Abhishek Kumar highlights the shift to value-based models as pivotal to solve these challenges: 'Systems, billing, and tech must empower clinicians, not burden them.' Kumar further added, 'This requires redefining workflows. Automation tools that streamline documentation, coupled with interoperable platforms, can free clinicians to focus on empathy-driven care. The result? Enhanced patient trust and better health outcomes.' Madhuri Raya emphasizes that technology's role is to 'simplify complexity, not add noise.' Remote monitoring, AI-driven diagnostics, and wearable devices expand access and enable preventive care. However, their efficacy depends on interoperability—a seamless exchange of data across platforms. Raya said, 'For us, technology is not about building another app! It's about connecting people to their care teams, payers to providers, and ultimately connecting a disconnected health system so that it works better for the people it was created to serve.' Optum's approach prioritizes actionable insights over data overload. For instance, predictive analytics identify high-risk patients, enabling early interventions. This aligns with Rohit Agarwal's vision of 'consumer empowerment through hyper-personalized care journeys.' Innovation cannot thrive in isolation. Rohit Agarwal outlines four strategic trends shaping Optum's roadmap: 1. Consumer Empowerment: Tailored care journeys using behavioral. 2. Wellness-Driven Models: IoT and real-time data for proactive health management. 3. Interoperable Platforms: Bridging claims, clinical care, and pharmacy systems. 4. Value-Based Incentives: Rewarding quality over volume. TheiNNOV8program at Optum embeds innovation into organizational DNA. Initiatives like Bright Ideas (crowdsourcing frontline solutions) and iFactor (a Shark Tank-style accelerator) foster agility. 'Execution at scale turns ideas into value,' Agarwal asserts. Breaking down silos between technology and operations is critical. Kumar advocates co-locating teams to foster empathy and rapid iteration. For example, the 'Sit with Ops' initiative at Optum allows tech teams to witness frontline challenges firsthand. This collaboration extends to capability mapping—streamlining processes from claims to clinical care. 'The closer the partnership, the better the outcomes in experience, efficiency, and cost,' Kumar explains. Innovation must deliver tangible results. Singh stresses metrics like adoption rates, Net Promoter Score, and ROI. 'If it doesn't improve experiences or outcomes, it's not innovation,' he states. Optum pilots solutions rigorously, scaling only those that enhance care delivery and operational efficiency. To future-proof healthcare, leaders must: As Raya notes, 'Reskilling builds for tomorrow, not just today.'
Mint
30-04-2025
- Health
- Mint
The changing face of the Indian healthcare industry: A focus on access, affordability and quality
A growing demand for personalised healthcare, efficiencies in healthcare costs and digital innovations are changing the face of the Indian healthcare industry. There is a strong push towards achieving greater levels of efficiencies in healthcare costs that have burgeoned in India in the past few years, thereby ensuring that quality healthcare becomes more accessible and sustainable. Powering this transformation are rapid advancements in the digital space, which are creating new possibilities in how healthcare is delivered and experienced by both sides – patients as well as providers. In a country as vast and diverse as India, this is expected to address some fundamental challenges, including expanding access to quality healthcare across different geographies ensuring affordability for a much larger section of our population and, at the same time, elevating the quality of healthcare being provided. Global Capability Centres (GCCs) like Optum India, the GCC of United Health Group, are playing a pivotal part in this transformation journey as they move beyond traditional roles focused on cost savings and operational efficiency. In a recent panel discussion, leaders from Optum India – including Rohit Agarwal, Senior Vice President for Transformation, Innovation and Enablement, Abhishek Kumar, Senior Vice President for Operations, Surendra Singh, Senior Vice President for Operations, Madhuri Raya, Vice President of Software Engineering – shared their insights on the pressing issues faced by the Indian healthcare industry and the way forward towards a more human-centered health system, driven by frontline-led innovation and deeply integrated TechOps cultures. Key challenges in healthcare 'I think the three key challenges in healthcare are lower cost, improved access to care and the quality of outcomes. The healthcare cost has been steadily rising over the years. If you were to look at the US, I think it has crossed over 5 trillion more than the inflation in the country,' said Surendra Singh, as he set the context for the discussion. The second challenge – access to healthcare in the remote corners of any country – saw advancements during the pandemic with the introduction of tele-health, which brought your doctor closer home on your smartphone screen. But, this also has its challenges in terms of safety, privacy, and the depth to which teleconsulting can actually provide the right degree of care. Finally, he stressed on the imperative of not just providing care but ensuring its effectiveness. 'Technology has enabled us to manage health outcomes in real time, manage protocols, procedures, best actions, medicine adherence, and so on. We need to continue to strengthen some of these to become more real time, to be able to and also start monitoring health outcomes, rather than just in and out of healthcare facilities. Abhishek Kumar stressed that the core of any healthcare system is the interaction between a physician and the patient. 'Everything around that is really an admin setup to enable that entire process. Unfortunately, what happens today is a lot of time a physician spends doing a lot of admin activities, which is essential to be able to get reimbursements for the care provided. I think moving away from a volume-based care to a value-based care, creating incentive for physicians for delivering value pitches, which means you avoid readmission, you improve medication adherence – that's the broad impact that the entire thing creates.' Addressing challenges using technology However, physicians need the right actionable knowledge in order to offer value-based care to their patients with more personalised healthcare outcomes at reduced costs. For patients, the goal is empowerment through information, so that they can make the right healthcare decisions for themselves. All this is being made possible through technology. Outlining the key technological trends in this space, Madhuri Raya highlighted the potential of tele health to 'increase the accessibility, whether you are in the rural areas or if you are on a mobile' and the transformative impact of emerging tech to 'deliver the personalised care to patients based on their previous markers'. Interoperability, she explained, is crucial for enabling large population health data analysis. There is a preventive and a curative aspect to healthcare, and both of these need to be integrated into the solutions as hyper personalisation enables people to take better care of themselves with the use of data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging tech like smart wearables, which can help with prevention as well as cure with early diagnosis. Innovative solutions for the healthcare ecosystem The panel went on to discuss the key drivers for innovation, which include people, process, technology and data. It starts with an informed and a tech-enabled consumer who can use the internet and understand his/ her health condition, find the right doctor, carry out a price comparison, set up an appointment and make alterations, if needed. 'It is making sure that the entire healthcare experience is in the hands of the consumer at a place and at a time when the consumer needs it. I think that is going to be an absolutely critical trend,' said Rohit Agarwal. The second one is around wellness, which is gaining priority. The third one is a digital platform that helps drive interoperability and the last one is the move towards value-based competency models. Agarwal further felt Optum is a key driver of this change, and said: 'I think Optum is well-positioned to really accelerate and drive this innovation in the healthcare industry. We've got a program that we call Innovate, which is our innovation framework, which really helps us bring together multiple aspects of what really is needed to guide that innovation and is helping us really accelerate innovation.' Synergy between technology and business operations The panellists underscored the critical need for alignment between technology and operations, which is a shift from the historic model wherein technology and operations were two distinct functions operating out of different office spaces. 'If we are able to look at co-location of operations and technology teams, that can drive a lot of synergies, and fill a lot of silos. Getting technology and ops together allows you to be able to make sure that your technology roadmap is linked to the preferences and the requirements of the patient and the provider,' said Kumar. 'The second element is how do you look at adjacent capabilities, and how do you create value out of that? At Optum, we have all the capabilities. We run claims, we do revenue cycle management, we do clinical, pharmacy benefit management. If you look at that, each one of them serves the patient or the provider at some stage or the other. Now, each of them is interconnected,' he further said. Identifying opportunities The healthcare space is dotted with new innovations to tackle challenges around quality and consumer experience. The panel also discussed how leaders can find the right solutions to prioritise. 'Innovation is going to be effective only when it's aligned to the priorities of the enterprise. So it is extremely critical that we make sure that everybody in the organisation understands what enterprise priorities are,' said Agarwal. He also stressed upon the importance of a patient-centric approach and added: 'it is important to make sure that we are putting the consumer at the centre of everything we do that makes sure that we focus on the right real problems, the real pain points.' At Optum, this is done through 'voice of the consumer surveys', 'voice of the employee', and 'voice of the process'. 'We leverage our Innovate framework...a multi-faceted program that brings people, process, technology and data together to make sure that we're able to really focus on the key things and accelerate innovation across the company. Ideas can be everywhere, but ideas really are created or brought together when we have a strong innovation culture. And for me, I think that is the single most important thing,' he said. Developing the Tech organisation Players like Optum offer multiple ways for business teams to stay up to date with this landscape of changing technologies and continued innovation. Raya spoke about Optum Tech University which offers a lot of courses in technology, operational agility, organisational agility, design thinking, customer centricity, and the like. They also organise industry-focused events that 'bring in the industry leaders, our technology partners and our own employees in one explore what we can do for the future of technology'. 'Continuous upskilling and reskilling and the creation of an environment like a sandbox that employees can actually work there, build their systems without disrupting their core functionality' are some of the important steps towards innovation. The panel stressed the importance of building solutions that are scalable. 'A creativity mindset is key when you are building solutions, identifying your stakeholders and engaging with them. I think the diverse perspectives from multiple stakeholders helps in building strong systems,' said Raya. 'Innovation initiatives should be aligned to strategic objectives that they have to be measured against some predefined KPIs, that emphasise the importance of balancing our short-term wins versus long-term value creation,' said Singh. He enlisted some key points that make innovations successful, the first of which is adoption both internally by employees and externally by customers for which they need to be simple and effective. 'I think higher rates of adoption are a true signal that we have really solved a real-world problem, either internally, for our team members or for our members or customers. Second, you will measure them qualitatively as well as quantitatively,' he said. In conclusion, the future of Indian healthcare is linked to the evolution of its GCCs. As these hubs continue to mature, their focus on technological advancement, innovative solutions, and a deeply ingrained patient-first approach will be instrumental in building a healthcare ecosystem that is more efficient and accessible to all but also fundamentally more attuned to the individual needs of every Indian. First Published: 30 Apr 2025, 06:19 PM IST
