Unleashing the Power of Collaboration and Innovation in Healthcare
Unleashing the Power of Collaboration and Innovation in Healthcare: Insights from Dame Vivian Hunt, Chief Innovation Officer at UnitedHealth Group at HLTH Europe, 17th June 2024, Amsterdam
The inaugural HLTH event in Mountain View showcased an impressive array of entrepreneurs and innovations aimed at tackling some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare today. Dame Vivian Hunt, Chief Innovation Officer at UnitedHealth Group, was among the keynote speakers. She shared her perspective on the transformative potential of technology and collaboration to improve care quality, access, and affordability.
“It is fantastic to see that we have ambition and believe that we can make transformative differences,” said Dame Hunt in her opening remarks. “The opportunity, we would say the responsibility, of working in healthcare really is privileged.”
She acknowledged that healthcare systems worldwide grapple with increasing demand, cost pressures, and quality concerns. However, powerful new tools like sensors, AI applications, and innovative care delivery models offer promising solutions.
“It’s going to take all of us working together across the health ecosystem to bring to reality the transformative change that society and local care systems need,” emphasised Dame Hunt. She explained that UnitedHealth Group is leveraging technology, data analytics, and partnerships to provide more affordable, high-quality care to tens of millions of patients in the US, UK and globally.
One focus area is integrated care — using data and technology to get the right information to providers and patients at the right time to improve outcomes. For example, closing information gaps so primary care teams are promptly notified of their patients’ ER visits and can ensure timely follow-up care. Another priority is harnessing analytics to help clinicians identify the most clinically effective and cost-effective care pathways for their patient populations.
“It’s offering simple choices to help our clinicians and all our providers operate at the top of their license,” said Dame Hunt. “And of course, something that underpins everything else, which is access.”
She highlighted UnitedHealth’s 20+ year collaboration with the UK’s NHS to expand access and reduce the burden on secondary care. This includes a recent partnership with EMIS, a major provider of electronic health records, to drive better outcomes through interoperable services and a new, more user-friendly interface called EMIS-X.
“It’s the next step in making the flow of data and better decision-making safer, smarter and more consistent to benefit the workforce and the patients they serve,” explained Dame Hunt. “And it shows the power of thoughtful, innovative collaboration across the health ecosystem.”
She noted that these collaborative, technology-enabled solutions are relevant and applicable across European health systems. Earning the trust of providers, payers, regulators, and patients is critical, though, and requires holding innovation to high standards of safety, clinical rigour, and user experience.
“If your provider or GP and nurse practitioner, your carer doesn’t have confidence in the technology either, they’re certainly not going to recommend it to you,” Dame Hunt pointed out. “So building trust with the providers, sort of the B2B trust, is just as important as the patient or the carers and the B2C.”
She also emphasised that AI and algorithms should support and enhance, not replace, human decision-making in healthcare. “If it ever feels like the machine is making the decision, then I think you’re doing something wrong.”
When asked about balancing population health priorities with competing challenges like geopolitical tensions and economic pressures, Dame Hunt expressed optimism that healthcare innovation can be part of the solution. A healthier population translates to a more productive workforce and society.
“These things aren’t in tension,” she asserted. “Just because we have big serious problems doesn’t mean that healthcare has to be a cost or complexity. It’s a fantastic industry. There’s nothing, at least for me, more meaningful that you can do with your time. And it makes a real difference on a human level.”
Addressing the recent significant data breach affecting UnitedHealth Group, Dame Hunt commended her colleagues’ response to restore operations and support affected providers. She said the experience reinforced the importance of robust cybersecurity measures, collaboration with outside experts, and openly sharing learnings to strengthen the industry’s collective resilience against future attacks.
In closing, Dame Hunt’s advice to the entrepreneurs and innovators in the audience was simple yet powerful: “Collaborate. We really want to have the best possible solutions for patients, providers and networks — healthcare to be more affordable over the long term. And no one company, no matter how big or small, is going to make that difference.”
The transformative innovations showcased at HLTH Europe and the cross-sector collaboration represented by leaders like Dame Vivian Hunt offer an inspiring glimpse of a future in which cutting-edge technology is thoughtfully harnessed to expand access to high-quality, affordable care for all. She said, “Our hope is that we can continue to work with and collaborate with lots of organisations in this room and beyond.”
