CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Mr Sureshkumar Rajashekhar, Vice President Technology at Optum.
- What are the 2023 predictions for tech enabled virtual care facilities like telehealth?
In a modern, high performing health system, everyone should have access to high quality, affordable health care. Today, tech-enabled virtual care facilities are helping us achieve this goal.
Virtual care has been one of the most prevalent trends in health care. The centre of gravity for care is moving out of large hospitals and closer to our homes. As per a leading management consultant, during COVID-19, the use of telehealth increased by 38 times.
At Optum, we rapidly expanded virtual care capabilities during the pandemic and prepared its own physicians for providing telehealth services. And it’s not just location of care but also how we incentivize quality care. There is a significant uptake of value-based care models that are replacing the traditional fee for service models.
In the United States, we are connecting in-home care, telehealth, easy-to-use digital tools and at-home diagnostics. We provide more coordinated care management and simpler transitions between care settings, while improving experiences and outcomes at lower costs. We have expanded in-home offerings with services like urgent care, acute and hospice-level care, and provide these services to new populations like our Medicaid members.
2. Personalization at scale is making its way into the health care consumer journey. What developments can we expect in this space in developing countries?
The consumerization of health care is here to stay and personalization in health care is also on the rise, where consumers increasingly want their health solutions to be customised to their needs. It enables them to take better-informed decisions by giving them access to reliable and relevant information, supported by appropriate technology. Numerous studies highlight that personalized care and precision medicine result in superior outcomes, improved patient experience and significant reduction in disease progression for chronic conditions. Patients are also actively seeking new channels of care that are customised to their needs.
This shift from traditional care methods is being enabled by technology. Advancements like point-of-care, health information exchange platforms, pharmacogenomics and remote monitoring solutions are already reducing lag and delivering more value per visit with immediate interventions. Population Health Management, especially, will facilitate targeted personalized care in the future. Powered by effective technologies, this can help achieve the goal of identifying and solving health care challenges within the patient population at scale.
3. Retaining and attracting top digital and technology talent will be a priority and a challenge in 2023? Post pandemic, how is health care industry poised to face this challenge?
There is plenty of room for more innovators and doers in health care, particularly those who are driven by integrity, compassion, inclusion and performance.
The health care sector, and specifically health technology, is accelerating at a great pace.
The last few years have seen a tremendous amount of activity in emerging areas of focus, such as virtual health care and behavioural health services. Pegged as one of the fastest growing industries across the world, the digital health care market in India is estimated to reach INR 485.43 billion by 2024, according to a report by KPMG India. This is a huge opportunity for India’s vast technology talent pool, estimated at around 1.6 million, and stakeholders need to inspire those with a passion for solving complex problems to choose a path that enables them to make real impact to the communities around them.
The health care domain affects each of our lives and so as individual technologists we need to make thoughtful choices that help us distinguish a great career from a good one. It’s an incredible opportunity that we have to spend our time and talents pursuing an ambitious yet humbling mission to help people lead healthier lives and help make health care better for everyone.
The future of health care sits at the exciting intersection of technology and talent and personally, my hope is that the new generation of technologists will increasingly choose opportunities such as playing a leading role in anticipating future pandemics or enabling drug discovery with analytics and thus experience a very direct impact of their work on the lives of people around them.
4. What are the upcoming technologies that makes care at home services more accessible? How receptive are patients to such innovative models of caregiving, especially post pandemic?
Post-pandemic, patients are increasingly seeking care at home services and this trend is equally beneficial for the stakeholders. A study conducted by S&P Global Intelligence found that at-home care programs reduced the total cost of care by 32 percent with shorter hospital stays for patients and a significant 15 percent decline in complications. In addition to reducing the strain on hospital resources and staff, it is also a cost-efficient and convenient way to enhance patient experience.
This development is being made possible by real-time monitoring of patients’ clinical/non-clinical data. New portable medical devices that help track patients’ physiological conditions in non-clinical settings are increasingly making remote care accessible to patients in different corners of the world.
Connected health care solutions that leverage IoT and analytics, also have a profound impact on the patient experience in remote care. IoT devices can gather, analyze, and communicate data in real time and reduce the need to store raw data. They also enable care providers to get vital health care analytics and data-driven insights, which speed up decision-making and are less prone to errors. Additionally, critical condition surveillance systems also improve the quality of remote care by monitoring critical data from EHRs and real-time point-of-care devices that detect clinical decomposition.
With the increasing prevalence of patients choosing to receive care at home and improved connectivity from 5G technology, we can expect more advanced technological tools in the future to help us make this transition.
5. What role does technology play in advancing patient communication by making it more personalized and accessible?
Technology will enable passive and active continuous care, which will enable better communication and more access. An example will be adherence to medication, which is critical for faster recovery and better chronic care management. Various targeted digital programs for blood pressure monitoring and diabetes have shown significant control and benefits as compared to usual care.
