HFS Highlight: Optum’s IT Performance Services seek to address health plan and provider’s need to accelerate emerging tech adoption and enhance cybersecurity

Optum, the United Health Group company with deep expertise in technology-enabled solutions, continues to hone its capabilities as it serves the healthcare ecosystem. As health plans and providers in particular lag with their technology enablement, Optum IT Performance Services appear to have a viable solution to offer.

Legacy infrastructure and applications limit value realization and expose security vulnerabilities

Healthcare executives across providers and health plans acknowledge that they face significant vulnerabilities against cyberattacks, that their business applications are sub-optimized, are either slow or unable to scale their digital health investments, and that they need to address them with urgency (Exhibit 1).

Exhibit 1: Major changes in the organization’s ways of working for the next 12 to 18 months

Source: HFS Research, 2021. Sample 108 Global Health Plans and Healthcare Providers

Optum seeks to address these challenges with IT Performance Services, a suite of five solutions including Infrastructure and Platform Services, Security, IT Professional Services, Application Services, and Market Services. These solutions address modernizing legacy infrastructure, hardening cybersecurity, and enhancing applications through a managed services paradigm.

IT Performance Services deliver its value by leveraging market partnerships with public cloud providers like Azure and overlays it with its intellectual property (IP) that is unique to the healthcare market.

Executives must seek partners with a deep understanding of healthcare

As the value of the cloud becomes table stakes, ransomware and cyber-attacks increase and the regulatory environment requires attention, business and technology must work together. The intensity and speed of changes will need partners who understand the industry and have the experience of delivering in the changing environment.

Optum’s IT Performance Services is offered exclusively to the healthcare market. The rationale for the market focus is to tailor the offering to address healthcare-specific needs such as compliance to HIPAA, HITRUST, SOC 2, etc. This go-to-market approach is in line with its singular focus on the healthcare ecosystem.

The solution also leverages its EPIC-focused center of excellence to address the optimization and adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems within a new implement and operate partnership model. This drives improved utility of EHR, and collaboration between clinicians and administrative resources to improve clinical outcomes.

Partner with those that can help you overcome investment and expertise challenges

Optum IT Performance Services has multiple economic models to choose from. The one common theme appears to be a “pay-as-you-go” model, allowing enterprises to use OpEx vs. hard-to-get CapEx. Optum makes initial and ongoing capital investments, minimizing risks for enterprises and providing a greater sense of financial predictability.

Expertise in healthcare, be it operations, regulations, markets, or technologies is critical given the nuances of the industry. Optum IT Performance Services appear to be structured to deliver business outcomes vs. pure technology capabilities, leveraging their healthcare expertise.

While table stakes and standard, Optum’s global delivery model will likely strengthen delivery with access to expert resources and a 24×7 support structure.

The Bottom Line: An offering that would potentially craft a path to solving near-term tactical challenges but also develop strategic capabilities that would enable business differentiation.

CIO’s in healthcare have a particularly difficult job as they balance constant budgetary pressures, increasing tech debt, cybersecurity vulnerabilities with increasing ransomware attacks, and the value of emerging-tech passing by them. A solution that is steeped in industry expertise is likely to offer much-needed relief to overcome these challenges.