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Building a modern digital health experience
We are at the helm of a digital health care revolution, which is being accelerated by a combination of technology and talent.
From creating a patient-centric approach to health care, enhancing provider experience to making heath care affordable, we are doing pioneering work across the health care spectrum.
Learn more about all of this and more — including advice for young technologists — from Ritesh Talapatra, MD, Optum Global Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd., in his discussion with TechGig.
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
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