How Innovation is Transforming Healthcare

Big ideas can come from anyone in a company. Whether from the boardroom or the frontlines, all it takes is seeing an opportunity to do things better.

Some known brands today were not born of multi-million-dollar budgets, but pain points turned into opportunities. The Post-It Note¹ came about from a 3M scientist’s adhesive formulation which was too weak for standard applications. A colleague repurposed this “failed glue” idea when he was looking for a way to stick bookmarks into his hymnal without damaging its pages.

Google developers found existing email services too slow, too cumbersome, and lacking in storage. They worked on an internal email system for Google employees which evolved into Gmail², now considered the world’s largest email service provider with billions of active users.

Today’s businesses are drawing inspiration from stories like these. More organizations are creating internal opportunities for employees to pitch improvements to different ways of working and customer experience.

Optum Philippines was established in 2011 and has grown to be the country’s largest healthcare global capability center. It is part of the UnitedHealth Group, a US-based healthcare company. It upholds the core principles of Caring, Connecting, Growing Together, that enables the organization to drive a culture of innovation.

Innovation is truly reflected in Optum Philippines’ core culture, as the company recently established a dedicated space called the Innovation Garage. Inaugurated last June, it’s a hub where employees can gather to let their innovation juices flow and ideate initiatives that can transform existing processes to make healthcare better.

Optum Philippines is not only committed to improving healthcare for its clients by expanding services and enhancing patient experience. It is also supportive of its employees’ personal development by giving them spaces to upskill, explore their creativity, and contribute to the company’s growth. One such avenue is the annual iFACTOR competition, a global company-wide talent and innovation showcase launched in 2019.

iFACTOR is designed to spotlight groundbreaking ideas and exceptional talent within the organization, guided by enterprise priorities. Participants across the globe form cross functional teams and go on a three-month innovation sprint followed by live presentations of proof-of-concepts to executive leaders. From an incredible pool of 12,000 participants and over 500 ideas, 40 teams advanced to the semi? finals, and ultimately the top 10 finalists presented working Proof-of-Concepts, each aligned with the mission of: “To help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone.” These solutions demonstrated real-world applicability and readiness for scale, reinforcing the organization’s commitment to driving AI-first operations.

Celebrating excellence. This photo shows the Philippines-based representatives of this year’s iFACTOR winners beinghonored for their outstanding contributions by Optum executives, led by Samarth Mathur, Managing Director for Philippines and Puerto Rico (second from right).

Speaking during the leadership podcast for iFACTOR 4.0, Samarth Mathur, Managing Director of Optum Philippines and Puerto Rico, underscored the importance of collaboration in innovation. “Innovation does not happen in isolation,” he said, and explained that in order for ideas to come to life, multi-dimensional expertise is needed from ideation and development, to financing and implementation.

Through iFACTOR, “employees across middle and senior management come together to come up with really big ideas that shape the future,” remarked Rohit Agarwal, Optum Senior Vice President for Transformation, Innovation, and Enablement in the same podcast. He also noted how the number of participants has grown from 500 in 2019 to 12,000 this year. iFACTOR has allowed the organization’s employees to collaborate across countries to find unique solutions to concerns affecting patients and providers.

Rain Tan, VP for People Team, Optum Philippines, said he believes that “innovation starts from the top.” He added that fostering a culture of innovation entails that leaders have an innately curious mindset, and the company undertakes purposeful placement and active mentorship of its existing talent

Without a doubt, breakthroughs come from a company’s best assets: its people. All it takes is a work environment that encourages them to think differently and leaders that help them drive their innovation agenda to the forefront.

The iFACTOR finals were held last September 30, 2025, in India. Three out of the top five winners of the competition were represented by team members from the Philippines.

Visit Optum Philippines on Facebook and LinkedIn to learn more about iFACTOR and other innovation programs.

_{¹About Us. (n.d.). MMM-ext. https://www.post-it.com/3M/en_US/post-it/contact-us/about-us/}

_{²Smith, D. (2021, October 29). Celebrating 50 years of email. Google Workspace Blog. https://workspace.google.com/blog/productivity-collaboration/celebrating-50-years-of-email}