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Optum HT-Mint healthcare leadership talk
In collaboration with HT-Mint, Optum engaged in a high-impact leadership session, reaffirming its commitment to healthcare innovation.
June 30, 2025 | 1-minute read
On May 30, 2025, Optum, in collaboration with HT-Mint India, participated in a high-impact leadership discussion reaffirming its dedication to driving healthcare transformation through innovation. The session was moderated by Gautam Srinivasan, Senior Consulting Editor at HT-Mint.
The panel featured:
- Rohit Agarwal, Senior Vice President – Transformation, Innovation and Enablement
- Abhishek Kumar, Senior Vice President – Operations
- Surinder Singh, Senior Vice President – Operations
- Madhuri Raya, Vice President – Software Engineering
Discussion centered on strategic approaches at Optum to advancing the “Triple Aim” of healthcare: reducing costs, enhancing access and improving quality. This is being achieved through the integration of streamlined business operations, advanced analytics and cutting-edge technology.
Key initiatives such as “Sit with Ops” and iNNOV8 were highlighted as prime examples of how Optum is dismantling silos, fostering a culture of innovation and converting employee-driven ideas into scalable, real-world solutions. The dialogue underscored the Optum vision for a people-centric, interoperable and value-based healthcare ecosystem — where technology enhances care delivery while empathy remains foundational.
Insights from the session were featured in HT-Mint print and digital editions under the titles, “Optum India’s Vision for Humane, Tech-Driven Healthcare Transformation” (print) and “Innovative Healthcare: The Synergy of Technology and Business Operations” (digital).
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[Music] in a health care system grappling with
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the challenges of access affordability quality and outcome the need for
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innovation has never felt more urgent but real change does not come from
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isolated breakthroughs it happens when technology and operations move in sync
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and this is exactly what this conversation explores in this episode we shine the
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spotlight on Optum India a global capability center of United Health Group
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a fortune 4 company that is redefining the playbook for healthcare innovation
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[Music]
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well GCC's are fast emerging as strategic hubs for global enterprises in India alone they are expected to
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generate a$100 billion in revenue and employ over 2 and a half million
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professionals by 2030 beyond cost savings and process efficiency GCC's
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like Optum India have scaled to be a large and successful contributor to
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their enterprise with a keen focus on delivering quality outcomes by integrated healthcare operations and
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capabilities and advanced data analytics and technology solutions in this panel
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leaders from Optum share with us how frontline innovation and deeply
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integrated tech ops culture are shaping a smarter more human centered health
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system let's introduce our guests to you starting with Rohit Agarwal senior vice
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president for transformation innovation and enablement and also joining him is
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Abhishek Kumar senior vice president for operations also with us is Surender Singh senior vice president operations
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again and finally Madhuri vice president for software engineering thank you so
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much everyone for joining us and I'm looking forward to a conversation which has meaningful outcomes for all of us
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watching this presentation it's about healthcare but with any story we first
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have to explore what are the challenges at play before we talk about solutions so Suri we'll start with you about
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the key challenges in the healthcare industry because while we have seen a
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lot of developments happen which have transformed the Indian healthcare ecosystem there are still many
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challenges existing what's your thought on this so I think you kind of said it in your introductory line uh we
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define that as a triple aim in the context of healthcare whether it's US or Indian anywhere I think the three key
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challenges in healthcare are lower cost of course improve imp improved access to
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care and the quality of outcomes the healthcare cost has been steadily rising over the years if you were to look at US
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I think it has crossed over 5 trillion more than the general inflation in the country there are many reasons for that
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we develop new medicines we develop new procedures protocols people are also living uh longer even with chronic care
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of course that's a good thing but then all of that comes with a lot of cost and some very undesirable kind of things
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that lead to cost running the entire health ecosystem deals with a lot of administrative overheads which leads to
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which is the largest per chunk of the cost that goes into delivering care so that's about cost so how can we man
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minimize manage that over administrative expense on running the healthcare ecosystem I think is key on lowering the
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cost second is improving access to healthcare that's a universal challenge how do you provide access to healthcare
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in the remotest part of any nation any country any geography how do you provide emergency services care at the right
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point of time continues to be a key of course uh during covid we did see some u
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some breakthroughs in that in terms of tele consulting uh none of us could step out so we had to use teleconsulting in order to get
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some part of the care but I think there are still challenges safety privacy and also the depth to which teleconsulting
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can actually provide some sense of care so that's something still an area that we need to work on and third of course
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quality of outcomes while providing care when somebody needs is important but then how do you ensure
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the quality of health outcomes i think we have evolved or technology has enabled us to kind of manage health
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outcomes in real time manage uh protocols procedures uh next best
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actions medical medicine adherence and so on so we need to continue to strengthen some of these to become more
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real time to be able to and also start monitoring health outcomes rather than just in and out of healthcare facilities
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on quality of care so that's something I think this is what we call as a triple aim and that continues to be
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the challenges for healthcare industry across the world absolutely and this three-part approach is important in the
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context of the fact that we are a large country which means we are going to do things at scale which then brings into
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focus as you said you have to improve access you have to improve affordability and most importantly you have to improve
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the quality and the outcomes i want to take that forward and come to you Abishek because this is a discussion
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I've had with a lot of people especially in the clinician patient relationship and the outcomes necessary to improve
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that because if we boil down health care to one simple aspect it is that relationship between the clinician and
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the patient what would you have to say on that i mean so well said i think the crux of any healthcare is that
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interaction between a physician and a patient that's the crux of the healthcare everything around that is
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really an admin setup to enable that entire process uh unfortunately what happens today in the healthcare system is
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a lot of time of a physician is spent doing a lot of admin activities which is essential to be able to get
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reimbursement for the care provided and so on and so forth i think uh moving
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away from a volume based care to a value based care and creating incentive for
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physicians for delivering value which is which means you avoid readmission you improve medication adherence and so on
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and so forth that's the broad impact this entire thing creates so the relationship between the clinician or
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the physician and the patient should be the core of it and everything should be around it volume to value is one of the
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big levers through which we achieve that in the US healthcare system but can that can be achieved in all the uh countries
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across the globe absolutely and when technology works in into benefit that relationship it also addresses a lot of
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the burnout issues which a clinician faces during that as you mentioned if I'm bogged down with a lot of the
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administrative task I'm not going to be having that focus on my patient and
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making sure that the right outcome is being delivered to the patient fantastic let's move forward and come to you
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Maduri because as we talked about technology the question is what role is technology going to play in in solving
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these challenges because we have sort of now seen the PC's in this ecosystem
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advance enough that it's brought down a lot of the mental barriers people would have uh in in being analog in the way
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that they work now that we are embracing this digital age what sort of technologies do you see making a
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difference trend spotting and of course the broader role that technology is going to play what's your thought on this absolutely technology is going to
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be crucial right now and the most important thing that as we look at technology to solve in our healthcare is
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take the noise out of our overly complicated system that's the first thing that we're looking to do and of
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course we also want to see um how do we better connect patients and their
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providers right and how do we give them the data that they need to make their decisions physicians need to know what
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insights uh we can need to provide what insights data in fact we also need to
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figure out what is the actionable uh knowledge that they need so that they can deliver uh better health care for
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their patients and of course at the same time lowering the cost and be more personalized to them coming back to the
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patients the patients also need to have lot of information so that they feel they are empowered to make their own
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healthcare decisions um they need to understand how and when they need they
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need to pay for the healthcare and of course they needs to have a transparency in their own healthcare that would help
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to overall as a system what we need to do here is make it simpler make it
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effective that is it works for everybody by streamlining the operations and
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lowering the cost reducing tons of hospital visits oh that's what we
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need to work on and when it comes to the trends I think uh Suri mentioned tele
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health right uh remote patient monitoring telehealth is a big thing and you're talking about PC's yes there
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are many PC's there what it does virtual healthcare is actually increases the
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accessibility whether you are in the rural areas or if you are on a mobile having these uh will help the effective
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help that we're going to determine and of course uh the other one that we have is emerging tech we talk about emerging
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tech all the time would you imagine nowadays there is medical devices they
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do these analysis so fast and also deliver the accurate results than before
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there are algorithms which can deliver the personalized care to the patients based on their previous markers i would
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think emerging tech would revolutionize and we do have other uh for example that we have internet of things wearable
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technology you're going to wear an Apple uh watch or any other watch you're going to have access to all this information
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real time your physician is able to make those decisions real time in fact catch
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those early detection of certain health problems and solve them and finally the
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last one that we do have is um having this interoperability we have disjointed
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data all over the place with newer tech technology we have this interoperability systems in place where you can actually
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do a large population health data analysis at a larger extent so you do
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understand you can do a proactive monitoring and in fact uh have this interoperability system so the
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information is sent to any devices any healthcare system at any cough time to provide a good healthcare at the end I
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would see technology is not going to solve one killer app one pocket i think we see technology solving the system
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across so that we would reduce the cumbersome nature and make it simpler
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effective absolutely and as the challenges come up you have technologies there to solve those problems because I
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think it's also a factor of where are we on the maturity side of data as to now
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we have solutions which are mature enough to be employed in a highly regulated space like healthcare and I
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absolutely love the fact that you mentioned about hyper personalization healthcare that's where the data
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aspect the AI aspect comes in so that everyone feels empowered with the information they are receiving from the
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clinician or from the system and then they have a better understanding of how to take care of themselves so there is a
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a preventative aspect and a curative aspect which is integrated in the solutions as they come about all right
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let me expand on a few of these talking points and come to you Rohit because the question is how do you think companies
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can come up with innovative solutions to enhance the entire healthcare ecosystem
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because you look at transformation you look at innovation and you look at enablement so it would be great to get
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your bird's eye view perspective on this absolutely and you know my colleague spoke about a lot of these
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points uh my view is that you need to be able to get people process technology and data together to be able to drive
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innovation uh some of the trends that I think are going to be critical um the first one is around consumer experience
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the ability of an informed and a tech enabled consumer to uh really reach out
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you know on the internet on various uh tools to be able to really understand what are the conditions that you know he
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or she has um find right clinicians physicians uh look at you know what is
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the right price of um uh healthcare uh compare prices um set up appointments
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make changes to the appointment basically like you said the hyper personalization aspect act and the
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aspect of making sure that the entire healthcare experience is in the hands of the consumer at a place and at a time
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when the consumer really needs it i think that is going to be an absolutely critical trend the second one is related
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which is around wellness uh Maduri spoke about uh IoT connected devices i think
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also using the internet using computers using um you know the phones i see a lot of people you know building their
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exercise diet plans right regimes you know fitness plans uh again it gives
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the power of managing my own health you know with me or to me and that ensures
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that you know I'm able to personalize my wellness the preventative aspect that you spoke about uh the third one is a
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digital platform that helps drive interoperability right uh again Madi spoke about it i think that is critical
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because what it does is enables a consumer to practically create an entire
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healthcare ecosystem just for that consumer right just for me right and that I think is absolutely power
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powerful because I'm able to get a 360° view of my healthcare needs and the last
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one is you know the move to uh value based competency models you know payers and providers are moving from fee based
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services to value based competency uh that's absolutely critical because that is what will really drive better quality
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of healthcare outcomes at a lower cost and I think optum because of the
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fact that you know innovation is our core value is well positioned to really accelerate and drive this innovation in
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the healthcare industry and as you think about optum India um you know Optum Global uh we're again very well
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positioned to accelerate this innovation for the enterprise because of the vantage point that we have um you know
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Optum Global sees the entire healthcare uh journey across members and providers across
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various capabilities across all lines of businesses that uh has and that is
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really powerful we've got a pro a program that we call innovate uh which is our innovation framework uh which
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really helps us bring together multiple aspects of um you know what really is
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needed to drive that innovation and is helping us really accelerate innovation across uh absolutely and you are in
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such a unique vantage point that you get to access all parts of the value chain
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to drive what I would describe as a reutilization of experience as you mentioned in a sense I think we're all
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becoming CEOs of our own body right as you mentioned how you manage your body from a preventative and a curative
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aspect technology now enables you to at least have a bit of control back and see
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how you can manage your life better so it's great to see that enablement aspect being brought out by you all right now
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let's look at the synergy then we look at technology and business operations what sort of synergies come about
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Abishek your thoughts on this what would you have to say there are many ways many uh dimensions to it but I'd like to
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touch on two of them uh one is uh for a long time technology and operations has
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been two distinct functions operating in two distinct offices sometimes right uh
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the reporting structures also uh you know uh you know work in a distinct way
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uh in the middle of all of these things if we are able to look at collocation of operations and technology teams that can
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drive a lot of synergies that can kill a lot of silos think of it this way is a
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operator is somebody who is serving the patient or the member as a front line
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right technology is the one that enables it right so the enablement has to be very strong for the empathy and for the
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delivery of the services to the patients and the providers getting technology and
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ops together allows you to be able to make sure that your technology roadmap
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is linked to the preferences and the requirements of the patient and the provider one what it also allows is to
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for an learning of ops people about technology and technology about ops that
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truly can start delivering order of magnitude higher value so that I think is so they don't operate in isolation
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they see how what they do impacts the system that's the point and that's why you collocate them so that there is a
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natural collaboration happening there the second element uh I would say is how do you look at adjacent capabilities
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and how do you create value out of that at optum uh we have all the capabilities we run
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claims we do revenue cycle management we do clinical we'll do we'll do pharmacy benefit management if you look at that
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each one of them serves the patient or the provider at some stage or the other now each of them are interconnected so
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how do you bring the interconnectedness of them do a value stream mapping see what are waste in the system how do you
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take those waste out how do you create an ability to you know reduce the nonvalue ads pro steps in the process
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and really create value back make the turnaround time of a process faster those things could really help you
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deliver a lot of value the other thing is if you look at the technology stack on which all these operations are
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sitting it is very important that a failure in one technology stack or one process should not lead to an impact on
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the other so how are you able to preempt or predict what is happening at one place which can impact the other one
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that's I think is the second big one in terms of looking at the interconnectedness of this the other part of that I think interconnectedness
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is going to be very important is think about let me give you an example actually uh payment integrity revenue
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cycle management right a good collaboration and interconnected connectedness of that and reading that
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and understanding that can actually help you reduce the amount of denials it can help you provide cash to the providers
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at the right time so that they are able to serve the patients similarly think of it from the clinical world
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clinical and pharmacy there's a there's a prescription that is made by a doctor there's a pharmacist who delivers the
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the medication right being able to connect the two being able to understand and being able to create a synergy
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between the two could actually drive significant amount of better patient outcomes you know simple things like
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readmissions simple things like uh gaps in care people not people skipping their
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medication because of certain reasons if that is being known to a uh you know for to a physician the physician can drive
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you know uh encourage the members to be able to take the medications on time through the natural process and be able
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to deliver a better outcome so those are the two ones which I would say collocation and interconnectedness of
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capabilities and even within that as you mentioned the interoperability also enables a sharing of best practices
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tools and technologies right and in terms of the scale factor that's going to play a crucial role what would
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you say to that so uh look at the best practices if you look at a best practice
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in a particular area right that should also lead to an efficiency emerging out in the subsequent areas or the adjacent
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capabilities Right so that is definitely there and that definitely has to be a focus and that's a place where we through our innovate program that Rohit
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mentioned really focus on those areas to be able to look at a drawing a journey map of a patient look at drawing a you
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know uh value stream mapping of a business and to be able to understand how a best practice of one place can be
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replicated elsewhere all right let me take that point forward with in terms of identifying and prioritizing innovative
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opportunities because this is an ecosystem where so many innovative developments are coming about but the
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question is as leaders we also have to figure out what do we prioritize and what do we keep in the back burner maybe
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the time is not right so maybe you could share your perspective on this absolutely so hey so we all know that
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healthcare is complex right um you know we've talked about challenges around uh quality we've talked about challenges
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around consumer experience from my standpoint um innovation is going to be
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effective only when it's aligned to the priorities of the enterprise you know Ugi right so it's extremely critical
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that we u make sure that everybody in the organization understands what are enterprise priorities what are strategic
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business plans so that as they think about ideas as they think about solutions they're very aligned to
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those enterprise priorities i mean that's I think you know the starting point right um innovation has to be done
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with the keeping the consumer at the center right many of times you know we start you know solution first but I
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think it's important to make sure that we are putting the consumer at the center of everything we do uh that make
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sure that you know we focused on the real problems uh real pain points um and we do this by you know looking at voice
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of consumer surveys um you know we spoke about the fact that you at optum global we able to see the process uh and
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the journey end to end i think understanding the journey and the touch points across those journeys and you
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know having listening posts that help us understand what is the voice of the consumer is absolutely critical to
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understand you know what is it that we need to solve for uh we do something similar on voice of the employee making
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sure that you know we get a well-rounded view of the problems in addition to that we also look at the voice of the process
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which is studying uh workflows operation processes through the value stream maps that uh Abishek spoke about uh and this
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is where we leverage our innovate uh framework uh like I said it's a multifaceted program that brings people
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process technology and data together to make sure that we're able to really focus on the key things and accelerate
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innovation across the company um ideas can be everywhere uh but ideas really
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are created or bought together when we have a strong innovation culture and for
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me I think that is the single most important thing uh innovation is not the responsibility of only a small group of
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people innovation is the responsibility of everyone in the organization and we've got multiple programs u that
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really encourage innovation only when you do that can you have really breakthrough innovation right when you
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involve everybody in the organization uh you get a view of uh the same problem
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through multiple lenses multiple it's crowdsourcing of it's completely crowd sources and getting a different perspective uh you know on the same
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problem through various lenses and that is absolutely critical let me talk to you about two programs you the first one
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is the crowdsourcing one which we do annually uh this is where we actually encourage our frontline employees to
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come up with ideas these are people that are closest to the processes the workflows and the consumer touch points
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and they're able to really recommend what is it that can help us reduce the friction in the entire journey uh we
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support them through various tools technologies uh we support them through a mentorship program which is helping
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them not just come up with the ideas but also execute on that ideas and that is extremely transformative you
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know for a person even from their career progression the second one which is you know at the other end of the spectrum is
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um you know a shark tank based program that we do uh where we encourage our top talent to collaborate and come up with
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ideas that are aligned to the enterprise these are big bold ideas right that can really transform the way we work uh and
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they are encouraged you know by executive sponsors and making sure that there's a framework which takes the idea
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from ex you know from idea to actual execution this is I if I this is I if right and you know we've done it
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successfully over many years and uh really beneficial program to drive value as well as to create that
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innovation culture um you know you talked about prioritization right the prioritization in my mind begins at
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the time when uh you are starting an innovation program right at the initiation phase uh and that's when we
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have to make sure that we're aligning the innovation ideas to enterprise priorities and places or you know ideas
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which have the maximum impact on consumer experience uh even when we find solutions right you know we've got
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multiple teams that help us create an ecosystem of you know solutions we have to make sure that we select the
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solutions that are utilizing you know the best uh resources in terms of time
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money and cost right it's the optimal strategy optimal solutions have to be found u it's complex u it's not easy to
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kind of you know drive solutions you know the click of a button and sometimes for large complex problems and solutions
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we actually do uh um pilots to make sure that you were able to get the right solution before we scale them up Abhishek
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mentioned best practices i think that is an critical element of your innovation strategy uh because you know why
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reinvent the wheel right when you've when you've got something that has worked in one area use that same
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learning uh to be able to replicate in other areas um and the last one is making sure that you know uh we do this
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in a sustainable way um in a repetitive way because that's what will really help us drive innovation uh at scale so get
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set got everything is lined up to make sure that as you mentioned I love the fact that you focus on the capital
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and resource requirements that's an aspect which a lot of people forget while they are in love with the idea
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there's also a certain maturity level that idea needs to reach and of course there's a certain capital and resource
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requirement which it needs to match to make sure that it can be an idea which
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is executable taking that forward Madhuri coming to you the technology landscape is changing for us as I've heard within
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this discussion so many changes are happening so how do you make sure that your tech organization is evolving and
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is enabling your business teams to stay aligned with the rapidly evolving tech landscape and the advancements that are
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coming with it so take us through that high stakes world of making sure you're ahead of the curve um it is so important
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right to be up to date with the technology and uh Optum offers multiple ways to do that what we have something
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is Optum University what we do is we do offer a lot of courses technology
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operational agility uh organizational agility uh design thinking customer
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centricity uh many of the emerging tech that we have right now all of these
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courses are available they're available virtual in class or self-paced right um again all
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at free of cost we do encourage our employees to uh upskill themselves in
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these technologies as we go the second uh and more exciting I would say is the events that we conduct the recently we
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conducted an event called Optum partner tech tank what we do with respect to this event is we bring in the industry
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leaders our technology partners and our own employees in one event and idea is
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to explore what we can do the future of technology what are the new emerging tech that we can bring in so it
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kind of provides our employee also the exposure uh to the larger industry where
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the dialogues which are happening in terms of improving outcomes or streamlining operations or saving cost
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so they get a reference point as to what they exactly and they also hear from the best and I think that's the greatest
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exposure our employees can get um the other one that we are also thinking
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about is upskilling and reskilling constantly the tech and this upskilling and
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reskilling usually helps us to understand uh what are the new tech is
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there can we do an P about it uh what are the minimum viable product that we
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can build and for that you need to provide an environment like a sandbox environment or a or I would say a lab so
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so that employees can actually work uh there uh build their systems without
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disrupting their the core functionality and come up with the solutions thereby taking it over i think it's like
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practicing in the nets absolutely that's what it is making sure that you get your shots right absolutely that's what we're
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I think that's one of the really important for especially for the technologist to keep their hands dirty
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and that's exactly what these innovation labs helps us to do and uh and of course
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we um when you look at standardization I think that's also an aspect where you have to work with standardized
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technology platforms and frameworks if you can expand on that yeah it's so important a new emerging tech comes in
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we need to make sure that particular technology follows a certain framework make sure it is aligned to
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organizational goals uh the compliance standards especially we are a very
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Regulation heavy industry so a tech comes in we need to understand is it following
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the standardized process do we have a right framework in place are we doing things right are we using it responsibly
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and that is quite important for us and in terms of the ops teams in terms of driving the collaboration portion again
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you can technology can build in in isolation as you mentioned both uh Rohit
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and Abhishek mentioned the tech ops collaboration is very important and this is where the technologies actually
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understand the problems the customers face they see a real time thereby
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understand okay how do I come up with my solutions to a it this bringing
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this technology and ops together as you rightly mentioned streamline that operations helps us in reducing the
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costs absolutely but while we talk about the benefits I think we also have to talk about how do you measure whether
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these innovation initiatives are actually delivering what they are meant to deliver so Suri we'll come to you in
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terms of your perspective as to how you figure out whether an innovation
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initiative is up to the mark how do you measure the success and what are the metrics which are most important to you
30:34
i think as Roy said uh innovation initiatives should be aligned to
30:40
strategic objectives of course and if they are then they have to be measured against some predefined KPIs that
30:46
kind of emphasize the importance of balancing our short-term wins versus
30:52
long-term value creation having said that I think the first just to name a few uh as you said measurements that
30:59
point to the success of innovation first and foremost is adoption i think we can
31:04
uh as Madi said simple and effective we can make as many solutions as we want but if they're not simple effective not
31:11
adopted by users internally or members or customers outside then it's the first
31:18
filter correct yeah i think higher rates of adoption are a true signal that we have really solved a real world problem
31:25
either internally for our team members or for our members or customers i think that's very important number one number
31:32
two I think uh and then of course you will measure them qualitatively as well as quantitatively
31:38
uh has the solution improved experience again for making life easier for our team members or improving the
31:46
experience of how members engage with us all the digital efforts and all of that
31:51
you I think a clear measure for them is net promoter scores u I think an elevation in net promoter scores is a
31:57
clear indicator that customers are happy they'll happily recommend this they are engaging well with these solutions I
32:03
think surveys different organizations measure it differently nps is a good indicator customers satisfaction another
32:09
one which is good third now if we have really solved a problem if they are aligned to some of our key either
32:16
short-term medium-term long-term objectives then we must have delivered on something so even technical measures
32:21
become very important cost efficiency productivity are we making things faster
32:27
all of that experience of course increased output increased output minimizing wastage so what has really
32:33
what has it really delivered on so those kinds of measures I think very key
32:38
to keep a sight of and then ultimately the goal of any organization is to
32:43
drive financial performance so tracking revenue growth margins return on
32:49
investment on these solutions become the key objectives for any business leadership or an organization to
32:55
continuously invest and say that yes our innovation is successfully aligned to
33:00
our strategically objective and process based where if automation comes in there's savings there as well right
33:05
correct savings time saved uh higher productivity efficiency are you doing
33:10
more with less those kinds of things of course as I said some of the technical measures they also become very important so I think not in that order
33:17
but all of them put together really tell us whether the innovations are aligned to strategic objectives
33:23
they're working they're indeed successful should we continue to invest I think that's how I look at it and for customers in when how do you approach it
33:29
from the customer I think customers uh customers one of course is the experience going up are they happy that
33:35
not only helps us retain more members uh with respect to our services health plans it not only improves the as we
33:42
call as a lifetime value of members for us but also is it improving the outcomes
33:48
for the members whether they are related to health whether they are related to the ability to access health care faster
33:55
maybe reducing the overall cost of receiving that healthcare I think those are also very important uh that's true
34:01
because in a lot of the conversations I have it's a very go to market paradigm environment right now where
34:07
anything that you're doing within the organization is in the service of making sure that your innovation is hitting the
34:12
market before what the competition does so it's great to see that all bases are
34:18
in a sense covered taking it forward coming to you Rohit as we sort of tie up a few loose ends in this discussion what
34:24
advice would you give to organizations to better integrate technology with the
34:30
business side of things to make sure that at the end of the day it's more out outcome focused whether it's to enhance
34:37
customer experience or whether it's to enhance employee experience what would you say so my advice uh would be uh
34:45
two things right one um innovation culture and the collaboration right um I
34:50
think culture is very important like I spoke about earlier to make sure that innovation is not restricted to a
34:57
certain area but right across as you think about optum what we have is we've created an ecosystem where the
35:04
operating teams and the technology team work together uh they understand the priorities of the business they
35:10
understand the pain points of for consumers and then work together to really solve them we've got some
35:16
programs like sit with ops uh where like madi was saying right the technology
35:22
team and the ops team sit together observe the process in real time look at
35:27
you know the challenges in the operational workflows look at challenges both from a user standpoint a consumer
35:34
standpoint and an employee standpoint uh and then find problems solutions to
35:39
those problems uh extremely powerful because what you're actually doing is you're taking a holistic view of making
35:48
sure that you know simplifying friction points across the entire end to end journey for our patients and our
35:54
consumers absolutely it's like batsmen and bowlers sitting together and saying we are going to work like a team so let's strategize accordingly suri come
36:01
to you your what's your advice because this is a slightly tricky issue because the nature of it changes for different
36:07
companies so from bases your experience what would you say i think uh like
36:13
business operations and technology can sometimes give an impression that they are two different of course they are two
36:18
different in terms of the skills that they bring but they can also go in two different directions so the advice that
36:24
I would like to give if I can call it an advice is have shared goals I think we spoke about collocation of
36:30
course gives you the benefit of looking at the same problem in real time we have two sets of experts one who knows deep
36:38
domain knowledge on how does the system work the other set of experts who can reconfigure the system to deliver it
36:44
better so I think nothing better than shared goals now shared goals also
36:49
is what kind of shared goals uh there can be number of goals but what do we
36:54
really call as shared goals one of course very fundamental I come from business operations the most fundamental
37:00
goals for business operations is are we doing something together to improve efficiency and cost uh why business
37:06
operations exist to serve our members in the fastest possible way the best experience with the reduced minimized
37:13
total cost to serve so is that a shared goal between technology at uh operations
37:18
we shouldn't be going in different directions one seeking too many investments the other cutting cost at the other end so what do where do we
37:25
really emerge I think that's very important the next one of course uh
37:30
directly so we are serving members either or internally our team members also they're also our responsibility so
37:37
what are we doing is whatever shared goals do we have how is it improving outcomes for our end customers our
37:43
members either it's in experience whether it is in quality of health outcomes whether their ability to access
37:49
us whatever it is so how are we jointly owning some of them uh operations own
37:55
smooth delivery and support which also has its element of what do we deliver to the end customers so does technology so
38:01
how do we manage that third I think scalability and innovation are we
38:06
working together do we have joint goals are we breaking kind of barriers to
38:12
solve problems differently looking at the same problem with the same perspective from a customers or a
38:18
member's perspective and doing enough to innovate to bring new solutions and solve and then also being able to scale
38:25
them because that's very important scaling them in order to be able to manage large markets manage more
38:30
workloads be able to grow the organization so I think my biggest uh as I said if I can use that word advice is
38:37
have shared goals define those shared goals and then let the leadership run
38:42
those shared goals jointly I think that's very important and that's how moonshots come about right if you do not have a shared goal you're not having
38:49
everyone working together to make sure that they're taking things to the next level which is where aspects around
38:54
improving customer experience optimizing cost all of them are subsets the idea is
39:00
how do you expand and grow to become a next level team all right on that note your thoughts on this what would you
39:06
advise having that agility mindset is the key when you're building solutions
39:12
identify your stakeholder holders and engage with them getting that diverse perspective from multiple stakeholders
39:18
help in building a strong systems and of course the second one is co-creation
39:24
with your customers right and if you do that co-creation with customers you
39:30
engage them in there take their ideas your ideas in there kind of brings you
39:36
that innovative solutions in there and I feel that's quite important and then we
39:41
also have to iterate right and it's not execution once and
39:47
leave it you have to execute and then you iterate multiple times so that you streamline it you bring in those
39:54
efficiencies built in and of course uh you also want to celebrate your success
39:59
stories at the end right and that's how culture we talked about is made of right
40:04
the once you celebrate the success stories once you showcase what good feels like people try to emulate it and
40:11
that's what that's how you build your culture it serves as a reference point because if there are those who have gone
40:16
ahead and ventured and conquered new horizons it serves as an inspiration for
40:21
those who come behind them saying we'll follow this path exactly and you're defining what good looks like and so
40:28
that it is a role model for others to follow absolutely all right Abishek let's get the last word from you the
40:35
advice that ties everything together i love what the three of you've got enough reference material from all of them i
40:41
loved all the three colleagues of mine brought in about culture you know uh that setting up you know success cases
40:49
being able to create a shared MBOS one of the things that I think is going to be you know which is going to be a part
40:55
of it but also should be looked at by organizations very objectively is how do
41:01
you take technology learning to your business process teams or your business operations teams uh I'll give you a
41:09
couple of examples so when you're applying technology in a particular business process what would you do you would go speak to the specialist come up
41:16
with the best ideas and then kind of build that uh the reality is in the
41:21
industry a lot of what is taught versus what is done there's a shade of difference between the two and mostly
41:27
what is done is more effective and efficient than what is taught right uh for lack of better words I call it a
41:33
tribal knowledge right how do you pick that tribal knowledge for your operating teams and help them understand what the
41:40
art of the possible is so if your business operation team members are trained on technology and I'm not
41:46
talking about an extreme you know getting them certified etc. But basically oriented towards uh technology what
41:53
allows them to think is okay here is a problem i know a little bit of technology those are the technologies
41:59
that can help me solve this problem they need to learn words from the dictionary before they construct sentences
42:04
absolutely and then they take those ideas go to the right teams and say you know what this is what we could do now
42:10
this is a place where they demonstrate their ownership they demonstrate their willingness as Rohit said getting the
42:15
ideas from the grassroot level that's going to be critical it also helps you create a very unique employee value
42:21
proposition right uh think of it from a standpoint of can the next product
42:28
manager in technology be somebody who comes from ops who has got a good understanding of ops can the role of
42:34
business analyst who you know for simplicity sake works as a translator between ops and technology
42:41
can that business analyst be a role that comes out of uh business operations what that allows you to be able to number one
42:49
drive innovation number two create the unique value proposition for employees but also create a very unique
42:54
proposition for you in the market to attract more talent so that's what I would say is how do you use technology
43:01
learning or technology training as a lever to be able to drive all three of the with your business process employees
43:06
well to distill it into one point free your mind and the rest will follow all
43:11
right well let me give a few talking points uh compressed for your benefit as
43:16
this discussion has made clear the future of healthcare won't be built in labs alone it will be co-created at the
43:24
intersection of technology and operations empathy and execution at
43:29
Optum India innovation isn't an isolated function it's embedded in how teams listen build iterated and scale
43:37
from tele consultation ecosystems to analytics part care pathways their model
43:42
shows that when tech and ops sit at the same table real transformation becomes
43:48
possible so GCC's like Optum are not just enhancing the back end of global healthcare they are reimagining the
43:55
front lines addressing the triple aim of cost access and outcomes in a system
44:00
that desperately needs it because at the end of every innovation every dashboard every process every claim is a person
44:08
and in a world that often forgets that Optum's approach is a timely reminder that the real power of innovation lies
44:15
not in the tech itself but in what it enables us to do for people and on that
44:21
note I'd like to thank all of the guests that we have with us here to enable us
44:26
to understand what this innovation ecosystem is doing and what's in store
44:32
ahead thank you so much for joining us thank you and thank you to our viewers
44:37
for tuning in till next time this is your host Gautam Shrinivasan signing off [Music]
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