Global operations

Hi, my name is

Ritesh Talaptra,

I live in Gurgaon with my wife,

two sons and a dog,

 which basically constitutes my family.

I'm the M.D.

in India, for Optum - The leading health

 services organization in the world.

Personally, I'm new to health care,

having spent most of my working years

initially with technology and products

 and then primarily

consulting within financial services.

I'm very excited learning much more

about the health care domain

 and finding ways to contribute.

What really excites me about health care

 is that while

medical sciences have been making great

advances, it's only recently

that we've started

 seeing the accelerating impact

of technology in health care

at the scale,

and I think the future

 is really wide open.

And that is,

 I think where Optum is leading.

You are at the forefront of the

 of the digital health care revolution,

and we are always looking

for more product thinkers and engineers

 to help us accelerate our journey.

What distinguishes us, in my humble

 opinion, is the mission

the ability to help people live

 healthier lives

as a result of our

 work that I think is unique.

As I said earlier said at Optum,

we are dedicated to helping people

 live healthier lives

and helping to make the health systems

 work better for everyone.

Towards that end, I think there are

 a few threads that are all very important.

The first I'd like to talk about

 is a more patient

centric approach

 to health care that anticipates

the patient's needs, involves

 the patient in the health care journey

and then provides the best care

 that's at the most convenient location.

At the same time,

we also want to focus on the provider

 and clinician experience too.

We envision

 a future where doctors can spend

more time on what's most important?

Patient interaction and technology

 recedes to the background

and acts mainly as an enabler,

providing suggestions and recommendations

 on the next best action.

Finally, we want to do all of this

in a way that makes health care

 much more affordable.

For example, to give you a few examples

if you are able to steer members

 towards more affordable generics

when it comes to buying medicines,

 we can save the money

if we are able to provide clinicians

with state of the art decision

 support that pulls in historical data.

You know all the research that's available

 and then advises them on the next

best course of action, we can actually help

 improve clinical outcomes.

If we can equip the elderly

 with the right sensors in their homes,

they can live more comfortably

 and independently.

There are many more examples

 that I can give you, but

these are examples of where we are

 actively involved at Optum

in helping people live better lives.

That,in a nutshell,

 is where we are looking at for the future.

Let's look at four different categories.

The first let's

 you know what I call customer experience,

the ability for an informed

 and tech enabled consumer

to research their condition and to search

and compare providers

 to look at different prices

and then select the clinician

 and the site that they want to visit.0

Then book appointments

 and then be reminded for different things.

So researchers have observed that

 as awareness of some of these technologies

growth, the utilization grows

 across age categories.

For example,

 telehealth solutions are very quickly

removing barriers to access

 to care in a very affordable way.

And the usage has gone up.

You know, somebody said,

 just say a 38 x or 38 times

during the pandemic.

But importantly,

 and this is very interesting, is that once96

a user has experience

 with these technologies

in the digital channels,

 they actually prefer to use

the digital channel

 over the physical channels.

So the whole consumer experience

categories is very interesting

 and it's evolving very quickly,

and the pandemic is actually providing

 a huge impetus to its progress.

The second area

is a related area,

 which let's call wellness,

and this is where people using

 their mobile phones and computers

and research to find diets,

 to find exercise regimens, to find coaches

but also wearable technologies like IoT,

 which they will

use to actively monitor their health

 and sometimes share it

with share that information

 with their primary providers.

The third area

could be around

predicting healthy lives.

So if we have longitudinal data time

series data on particular patients

 or members,

then over a period of time

 can we start predicting health events?

And most importantly,

 you know, intervening

in to and preventing those

 some of those events.

That's another great area.

You know, in the personalization

 of care experience and disease prediction.

And the final area,

 I would say, is the creation of a

wide digital platform

 that allows for the interoperability

of data with consent across

 organizational boundaries and

that allows a knowledgeable user

 to almost set

up their own healthcare ecosystem

 literally in the palm of their own hand.

I think that's a false choice.

What is technology if it's not balanced,

 connected together in action?

Sometimes I think as leaders,

 our job is to primarily

find the right talent,

 give them ambitious goals and then recede

into the background and focused mainly

 on removing impediments for them.

Which means two things first.

Finding the right talent.

Then finding the right leaders

 who will help those talent flourish.

But this also requires significant

 investment in the learning journey.

You know, in training

 and learning in technology and so on.

But you know, it

 starts with the right talent.

Not enough is said.

I feel about the importance of the right

 environment, the right type of workplace,

the right type of work policies

 that allow this type of talent,

the freedom and the flexibility

 to be the best0

versions of themselves and make mistakes

 that they can learn from.

First,

own your own careers,

at the end of the day,

you are responsible for your career

and others are merely trying to help.

But it is really your responsibility.

So please own your own career.

second, especially when you're young.

Make thoughtful choices.

Money versus mission, now versus later.

These are choices, and often you know

you make them without

the awareness

 that these choices really distinguish

a great career from a good career.

So be thoughtful

 about some of these choices, you know?

Do you want everything now?

Or do you want some important thing

 knowing the rest later?

That's an important choice to make in life

and to make in career.

The third thing I would say is

 technology is changing much quicker

than it was ten years ago, 20 years ago.

And it

 is essentially, it is quite important

for us to continue our learning journeys,

in throughout our career.

So I would say it's important

 to stay humble

and stay as student as long as we can.

And the last thing I would say

 is that, the health care sector

and the health tech sector

 more specifically

is accelerating at a rapid pace.

If you have passion

 for solving complex problems859

and making a real impact on communities

 around you,

there isn't a better place

 to do your life's best work