Home & Community

KRISTY DUFFEY: I want to fix the health care system. It is so fragmented. And our job is to make health care simpler, more affordable, and everyone deserves access. 

JON SHAW: There's a lot wrong with the healthcare system today, and I think we have a unique ability to fix it. 

MELISSA URREA: So we really have to think about how we meet patients where they are, and that's what Optum is trying to do, in terms of leading the way into that next level of healthcare and how we make it special and unique.

KRISTY DUFFEY: People are living longer, with multiple chronic conditions. In fact, by 2030, 73 million Americans will be over the age of 65. And so 10,000 baby boomers age into Medicare every single day. When we think about Home and Community, our focus is truly on how do we provide a seamless, more simplified care experience. 

MELISSA URREA: Our focus is to decrease the fragmentation in healthcare, by introducing more integrated solutions to health care.  JON SHAW: We have a unique ability to bring clarity, to help patients get through a challenging time in their lives, either when they've got a lot of different diseases, or when they're coming out of the hospital, or have had a disruptive health care event in their lives.

KRISTY DUFFEY: Patient centered care is about always putting the patient first. Being collaborative, being coordinated, and always being accessible.  JON SHAW: How do we get you the best healthcare that works for you, rather than what might work for somebody else, which might be something very different. 

MELISSA URREA: Patient centered care is caring for a patient in a way that's meaningful to them. JON SHAW: There's a lot more to healthcare than just what diseases you have and clinically how you treat. You really got to think about the person's living situation and how they have access to healthcare, and what they can and can't do, in terms of financial situation, living situation, transportation.

KRISTY DUFFEY: What we're doing within Home and Community is we're actually meeting people where they are, in their home, and we're getting more preventative in their care, versus reactive. And so that's where we've seen tremendous outcomes in our Home and Community business, with decrease in hospitalizations, decrease in our readmission rates, as well as decrease in ER utilization.

MELISSA URREA: We want to make sure that we are taking care of the patient from every aspect of their care, whether that be their physical self, their mental self, their social needs. We want to address all of those needs. Home and Community Care is about caring for people.