Final Business Plan

1

BUSINESS PLAN

UnitedHealth Group Business Plan

Dominica Thomas

Grand Canyon University

HCA 470

Professor Jerry Perkins

3 May 2026

UnitedHealth Group Business Plan

Action Steps Necessary for Implementation of the Plan

The implementation of the proposed AI-backed digital health and telehealth strategic will take place in rolled out phases that will run throughout the three-year project’s budget window. The first half of the first year will see the organization formulating a cross-functional committee led by the Chief Digital Officer and the Chief Medical Officer. This committee will serve as the central epitome of governance and will oversee all technical and clinical dimensions of the proposed strategic initiative (Spanos et al., 2024). This committee will also oversee the organization’s execution of binding contractual agreements with Amazon Web Services, Google Health, and IBM Watson via the HIPAA Business Associate Agreements. After formulation and sealing of the agreements, the deployment of cloud infrastructure on AWS will commence giving a solid foundation upon which all technological AI capabilities will be based. The FY 2024 ransomware breach that caused a 32% net income decline calls for rigorous embedment of cybersecurity protocols to seal any vulnerabilities. After setting the infrastructure in place, the telehealth applications will be developed and piloting done with emphasis on rural and low-income communities as the primary targets. In the remaining two years, the organization will shift towards full-scale deployment and monitoring with the aim of reaching a 20% productivity gain.

Figure 1: Timeline Chart

Professional competencies and Resource Allocations

In order to realize the success of the proposed AI-powered digital and telehealth strategy, there is need for proper and structured allocation of resources. These resources range from human, financial, and technological resources (Anil et al.,2025). The strategic initiative requires a multifaceted workforce ranging from data engineers, to developers, medical staff, and cybersecurity professionals. This would cost approximately $174 million in budget in the first year with cost rising to about $192 million buy the third year. From a technological point of view, the initiative also requires cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity tools and AI model licensing. Additionally, at the governance level, there is need for transformational leadership, adaptive communication, and cultural intelligence. The strategic initiative should embed all this within the CDO-CMO structure to ensure that the implementation does not crumble under organizational resistance keeping all the stakeholders on boards.

Matching Resources and Professional Competencies to the Strategic Initiative

For success of the proposed initiative, each resource allocation is paired to a specific operational requirement. For one, the telehealth application budget is paired to the clinical informatics and software engineering needs. This is because they directly translate AI outputs to interfaces used mostly by targeted populations such as the rural and low-income populations (Morelli et al., 2024). Secondly, the IBM Watson Health NLP Partnership is tied to data scientists and AI specialists. This is linked to improvement of the language models processing the organization’s workflows therefore directly helping reach the 20% productivity improvement. Thirdly, the training budget is tied to the clinical staff. This aims at easing the new system adoption challenge making sure that healthcare providers such as nurses are competent enough to prevent underutilization of the AI tools

Alignment of the Action Plan to the Organization’s Strategic Initiatives

The proposed strategic initiative is in line with UnitedHealth Group Inc’s strategic initiatives of improving patient healthcare, achieving equity, and good financial performance. The initiative will enroll millions of new members with emphasis on rural and low-income populations, a direct commitment to achieving equity in healthcare (Rossi & Rehman, 2025). Additionally, the operational efficiency of the proposed system will reduce service delivery from 15 to 3 minutes. This will see a 20% productivity gain, a direct commitment to improving patient healthcare. The cybersecurity investments made will go a long way to rebuilding trust after the FY 2024 ransomware breach. As a result, the company will be shielded from any unanticipated financial consequences, a direct commitment to maintaining good financial performance especially with the recent positive growth in revenue.

References

Morelli, S., Daniele, C., D’Avenio, G., Grigioni, M., & Giansanti, D. (2024, July). Optimizing telehealth: Leveraging key performance indicators for enhanced telehealth and digital healthcare outcomes (telemechron study). In  Healthcare (Vol. 12, No. 13, p. 1319). MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12131319

Pellegrini, G., & Lovati, C. (2025). Stakeholders’ engagement for improved health outcomes: a research brief to design a tool for better communication and participation.  Frontiers in public health,  13, 1536753. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1536753

Rossi, M., & Rehman, S. (2025). Integrating artificial intelligence into telemedicine: evidence, challenges, and future directions.  Cureus,  17(8). https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.90829

Anil, K., Bird, A. R., Bridgman, K., Erickson, S., Freeman, J., McKinstry, C., ... & Abey, S. (2025). Telehealth competencies for allied health professionals: A scoping review.  Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare,  31(4), 487-499. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357633X231201877

Year 1: Q1-Q2

Governance & Partnerships

Year 1: Q3

Foundational Tech

Year 1: Q4

Year 2: Q1-Q4

Development and Pilot

Year 3: Q1-Q4

Scaling & Rollout

Optimization

Form committee (led by CDO & CMO)

Sign HIPAA Agreements with AWS, Google, & IBM

Deploy AWS cloud infrastructure

Embed rigorous cybersecurity protocols

Develop telehealth applications

Launch pilots in rural/low-income areas

Transition to full-scale deployment

Broaden regional access points

Continuous monitoring & AI refinement

Target 20% productivity gain