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Optum, Eden Prairie, Minnesota

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2012, Click to Enter The 2014 American Business Awards

Company: Optum, Eden Prairie, Minnesota
Entry Submitted By: Optum
Company Description: Optum is a global team of 65,000 people, working collaboratively across the health system to improve care delivery, quality and cost-effectiveness. Optum focuses on three key drivers of transformative change: engaging the consumer, aligning care delivery and modernizing the health system infrastructure.
Nomination Category: Products & Product Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: New Product or Service of the Year - Health & Pharmaceuticals - Service

Nomination Title: Optum ACO Solutions Market Launch

1. Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 525 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and performance to date:

GENESIS:

Healthcare in the United States is undergoing a fundamental change, altering the provider payment structure from one that rewards volume to one that rewards value. To do so, forward-looking physicians, hospitals and payers are creating innovative partnerships to reform the way they deliver care and the business models in which they operate.

These models include patient-centered medical homes, episodic and bundled payments, shared savings/shared risk and accountable care organizations (ACO). In this dynamic environment, healthcare providers are challenged to take on varying degrees of clinical and financial risk for the health of their patients. Optum, a B2B health services company, wanted to position itself as a leading solutions provider for healthcare organizations participating in these new business models.

DEVELOPMENT:

The target audience for this launch included C-level leaders of physician groups, community hospitals, and hospital systems. Optum especially targeted leaders of these types of organizations who are participating in Medicare’s Pioneer ACO pilot project and the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

The campaign’s goal was to drive sales pipeline as well as establish thought leadership for Optum around the topics of fee-for-value and accountable care. Optum developed and implemented a full-scale integrated marketing program to launch its accountable care services nationally.

More than 150 pieces of unique campaign content were made available at a website hub to drive campaign results. Executives could view videos of ACO success stories, download white papers that offered insights from other provider organizations, and see infographics that clearly explained challenges and solutions. The content provided assistance for executives no matter where their organization was in its transformation from volume to value. Optum helped healthcare executives in the education/planning phase understand how to get started on the path to building a sustainable healthcare community.

For those who were building a network of collaborators, Optum showed how sharing health information at the right time and place was critical to the success of the new healthcare business model. Organizations that were setting up data analysis saw how analytics led to actionable information that can improve care quality and lower costs. Finally, Optum showed organizations ready to transform how it helped migrate other groups from a volume-based care model into a value-based care model.

EXECUTION:

To support the launch, Optum developed a variety of rich content, and built a simple, impactful campaign around the content, driving prospects to its ACO website and delivering on its goals of thought leadership and conversion.

Optum’s integrated campaign applied a multitude of media to meet its campaign objective:

• Written content, including white papers, articles, case studies, webinars, event speaking sessions, and manifestos
• Audio/visual content, including videos and podcasts
• Paid media through display advertising, advertorials, and pay-per-click campaigns
• Direct response, including direct mail, email, and surveys
• Social media, through blog postings and social campaigns
• Sales support materials

RESULTS:

Optum turned a marketing investment of approximately $985,000 into closed business with a total contract value of $52 million in under one year.

Other highlights included:
• 23.5% lead-to-conversion rate
• 475% increase in website traffic in 6 months with 10,500 unique new visitors
• 2,575 resource downloads and 648 views of 10 videos
• 28% year-over-year increase in new blog followers

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2. Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:

With a stellar background in health care B2B sales and leadership, Karen Thomas-Smith brings a customer-oriented focus to Optum's marketing effort. Karen joined Optum in January 2012 as a vice president of marketing to develop a team to support a new product line within a relatively new industry category. She has done so with passion, energy, creativity and an unyielding focus on the needs of the customer. She leads an exceptional, high-functioning team that readily responds to her leadership. Prior to her role with Optum, Karen served in sales and training leadership roles at Allscripts/Misys and at SAS. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration from North Carolina Wesleyan College.