Exclusive Interview with Arvind Nagpal, Founder & CEO, HealthWorksAI

Technology has enabled rapid market growth in the healthcare sector with advanced technologies like cloud storage, artificial intelligence, and data analytics to the extent that it has become dependent on it to operate otherwise. There are very few market players which have the infrastructure to scale, to provide B2B services in the healthcare sector without compromising on the quality of services or security of patient data. HealthWorksAI's analytics-based solutions cover the end-to-end business needs of healthcare clients through its AI-enabled product and market intelligence services. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Arvind Nagpal, Founder & CEO, of HealthWorksAI.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

We are an AI-driven B2B SaaS company focused on analytics-based solutions for the healthcare sector. We have developed innovative solutions at the intersection of business, maths, and technology to drive profitable growth for health plans. We empower end users to focus on business decisions without getting overwhelmed with the underlying complexity of data and analytics. We recognize that businesses need to act and react quickly to evolving market conditions. All else being equal, the fastest company in the business will win.

Undoubtedly, the healthcare industry generates a lot of data but turning that data into insights that improve patient outcomes and operational efficiency is a difficult task. We're proud to empower organizations across the US. From multi-state insurers to regional plans, HealthWorksAI's platform and services are configured to meet the unique challenges of each client.

We pride ourselves on delivering insights at the speed of business. By leveraging the SaaS model, we have onboarded customers on our platform in as little as 48 hours from start to Go-live

2. Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how they get value out of it.

Medicare Advantage (MA) in the United States is a one-of-a-kind healthcare program funded by the federal government and managed by private insurance companies known as Payors or Health Plans.

Our customers who are mainly healthcare payors benefit from rapid access to very efficient and insightful Medicare Advantage market data, accurate predictions, and a reliable single source of truth for strategic decision-making.

We have majorly five products namely, ExplainableAI, ProductIntel, MarketIntel, NetworkIntel, and MarketingIntel which have gained good traction in the Healthcare market.

One of our recently launched solutions, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (xAI), is designed for senior health plan leaders to support strategic decision-making. xAI provides analytics & insights on the influence of various factors including the product design, provider network, brand, marketing, and other influencers toward business growth in each market.

Another majorly adopted solution of the HealthWorksAI portfolio is ProductIntel, an AI-powered Medicare product development platform. It helps product managers manage the entire product lifecycle from design to launch and successful execution of insurance products.

3. What's your growth plan for the next 12 months?

We at HealthWorksAI, are continuously evolving our products to deliver more value to our clients. We have a clearly laid out roadmap for each of our product lines with release plans extending out to the next three years. To meet this demand, we are rapidly expanding our talent pool. While there are thousands of engineering and science students graduating each year in India, we are very selective in our hiring by picking up sharp and smart from top tiers like IITs, BITs, and NITs. We plan to double our employee base in India in the next 18 months to strengthen our product portfolio.  

4. What are the key trends driving the growth in Big Data analytics/AI/Machine Learning?

At the fundamental level, there are three things: first, the amount of data is doubling every two years with all the digital revolution. Second, the rising computing power and cloud adoption has made access easier for crunching massive amounts of data. Thirdly, the open-source community has powered a new generation of innovative building blocks that allows innovators to assemble vs build everything from scratch. Today the number of no-code solutions has skyrocketed

And finally, the media has provided sufficient coverage over the last decade to channel energies into creating an ecosystem of institutions, practitioners, and research that has attracted top talent to the ecosystem.  This trend will continue for the foreseeable future as the amount of value that can be unlocked from the data is huge.

5. What is your advice to aspiring big data and analytics candidates?

The job market for data scientists has exploded, with data science, AI/ML being one of the most in-demand jobs sectors. Data analysis is now an important qualification for businesses. Every business decision is based on or supported by data, and organizations today hire professionals not only for their data-crunching skills, statistical concepts, or modeling guidelines in an offline or online setting, but also for more intensive involvement in statistical analysis, machine learning fundamentals, or other algorithms as part of the product eco-system.

Aspiring individuals must have trending skillsets, a thorough grasp of the language, and be up-to-date on the new emerging trends that are shaping the sector at the moment. The business context is extremely critical in this entire exercise. You should be able to answer "So what?" every time.

6. Can you throw light on the latest employment trends in the big data and analytics industry?

With rapid technological adoption across industries and entirely tech-enabled sectors such as IT, BFSI and healthcare, etc., the role of AI and machine learning will only grow in 2022 and the years to come, with a significant increase in demand for related roles.

According to some reports, AI/Machine Learning investments in India will grow at a CAGR of 33.49 percent until 2023. While the tools are improving, data scientists who want to excel in the market will still need a solid understanding of the fundamentals, such as data modeling, relational databases, and basic statistical analysis.

7. How do you plan to make an impact in the Indian/US market and what are your plans to tap the market?

We provide solutions for the Medicare Advantage (Medicare health plan offered by private companies) market in the US. Most of our work is upstream related to the benefit designs and portfolio designs that address the prevailing population health conditions in the market. We focus on benefit designs that impact a beneficiary's ability to take care of their health needs down the road. Our solutions are designed to look at the prevailing diseases, social determinants of health, and the cost of offering these benefits. The goal is to help beneficiaries manage their health conditions proactively. These solutions ultimately drive down the total cost of care and an opportunity to pump more dollars into the proactive care management

I believe, a solution provider with "an inch-wide and mile-deep focus" will always have an advantage over providers who "do everything for everyone." As key a player, we are aware of the audience's needs and expectations about the solution. Using a lot of data and employing the correct technique to generate insights is our mantra to generate business.