Projects
Creating and Leading Analytic and AI Teams
As Chief Scientific Officer and Sr. Vice President in the Consumer Solutions Group (CSG), a multibillion-dollar business at Optum, Ron led the Healthcare Analytics team which supports CSG's products and services. The Healthcare Analytics team had over 80 staff who supported the Optum business by using sophisticated machine learning statistical and econometric techniques.
Before that, Ron built and led the Healthcare Transformation Research and Reporting Center whose staff provided operational reporting for and evaluations of several disease management, specialty care, and wellness programs for large companies and insurers, including the largest UnitedHealth Group client, who provided over 5 billion dollars in annual revenue at the time.
IBM Watson Health provides artificial intelligence-based and other analytic, benchmarking, and consulting offerings to help providers, payers, life sciences firms, and government agencies improve health and healthcare and run their businesses better. Ron led the Watson Health analytics research and development group of over 90 staff who used artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other tools to build, update, maintain, and visualize predictive models and algorithms for use in Watson Health offerings.
Strategy & Roadmaps
OptumServe Consulting is the federal-facing analytics and consulting business within Optum, a UnitedHealth Group company. Ron developed and executed their AI strategy and led their AI account plan and the AI Community of Practice.
He also guided the development of analytic and data strategies and roadmaps, working with product leaders, business developers, and other executives across the company.
Health Economics & Outcomes Research and Machine Learning Projects
Among the hundreds of studies Ron has been involved with directly, many include analyses of the disease burden and the impact of wellness and care management programs designed to reduce this burden and improve quality of life.
Ron is regarded internationally as an expert in these areas, co-authoring over 160 peer-reviewed or other professional publications, and another 160+ professional conference presentations. Lists of these are available upon request.
While at OptumServe Consulting, Ron led predictive modeling of COVID-19 case and death rates at the county level, and he provided senior management guidance for other analytic and machine learning projects and for business development activities.
He also contributed to thought leadership by publishing OptumServe white papers describing the value of AI for federal clients in the healthcare space, and the use of machine learning to produce insights to better manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ron has used many different types of data over decades of research practice.
He has designed, managed, and/or conducted over 200 health services research and reporting projects for payers, providers, life sciences companies, and many others.
He has provided executive level guidance to staff conducing over 1,000 other projects as well.
Fairness and transparency in analytic models have been foci of Ron's research applications for many years. Over 120 peer-reviewed publications provide the details of analytic methods and strategies.
Ron and his teams have generated thousands of heterogeneity and sensitivity analyses, to better understand the impact of research methods on results pertaining to many different groups of people.
Most recently, Ron served on the Optum Corporate Executive Committee which derived Guiding Principles of Responsible Analytics and AI for the company. He also led the OptumServe AI Community of Practice, a large staff interest group which promotes and illustrates applications of AI and machine learning, focusing on equity and research methods.
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