LTG (Ret) Patricia (Patty) D. Horoho is the chief executive officer of Optum Serve, the end-to-end federal business of Optum and UnitedHealth Group, and Optum Health Solutions, a $3 billion business serving more than 300 million consumers.
Horoho joined UnitedHealth Group in 2017 to establish the Optum Serve brand, uniting three legacy businesses in the process. Under her leadership, Horoho has built a dynamic senior leadership team and has grown the Optum Serve employee population and business. This growth includes securing the $55 billion Veterans Affairs Community Care Network Third Party Administrator contract. Today Optum Serve continues to grow and expand its support of technology, health services, data analytics and consulting initiatives in both federal and commercial markets. In the last two years, Optum Serve has entered into new markets, grown the top line by 300%, improved bottom-line performance by 1,250 base points and grown into a multi-billion dollar organization.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Horoho’s agility and ability to effectively leverage resources resulted in Optum Serve rapidly standing up new business models to support both COVID-19 testing and vaccine distribution. Under her leadership, Optum Serve implemented both the Priority Identification Vaccine Operating Tool (PIVOT), which informs and monitors equitable COVID-19 vaccine administration, and Vaccine Outreach – Implementing Community Engagement (VOICE), which provides customized community engagement and collaboration to address vaccine hesitancy and difficult-to-reach consumers.
Horoho is a values-based servant leader whose life’s calling is to improve the U.S. health care system, focused in the areas of health care delivery, health readiness and health disparities. While guiding Optum Serve through periods of immense growth and change, Horoho maintains a laser focus on championing health equity, inclusion and diversity efforts, and Veteran-focused initiatives at UnitedHealth Group. Horoho is a frequently sought-after speaker, leader and adviser in these areas.
Horoho’s distinguished professional career also includes 33 years with the U.S. Army, where she retired as a Lieutenant General, the 43rd Army Surgeon General and Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Command. She made history being the first woman, first nurse and non-physician to hold these posts. In these roles, Horoho led the third largest health care system in the world — a global logistics, research and care network across five continents, with a multibillion-dollar budget and staff of more than 156,000. An expert in health care transformation, Horoho moved the entire Army Medicine organization from a disease model of care to a system for health. She implemented groundbreaking and long-lasting initiatives around behavioral health, while improving health care considerations and force protection measures for military women.