Milestones On The Path To Population Health

Use of the term “population health” has surged in recent years. Much of this enthusiasm has been driven by the idea that health reform would restructure incentives and unite the priorities of health care and public health. In practice, however, population health is often invoked by various stakeholders using different definitions: in health care, it usually refers to managing the health and cost outcomes of a defined patient population attributed to a health care system. Meanwhile, in public health, population health encompasses the aggregate health status of all people in a given geographic area. Divergent definitions of population health reflect a broader reality that, despite the potentially complementary approaches of public health and health care, health reform has not resulted in as much productive collaboration as had been hoped. There are many reasons for this, including still-conflicting financial incentives, the slow pace of institutional culture change, and an inconsistent measurement and outcome framework. These challenges are obstacles to uniting such a broad and diverse set of stakeholders. We propose two objectives to better shape the path toward population health: (1) connecting the patients who would most benefit from health care and supportive services—such as those with undiagnosed chronic conditions—to appropriate clinical and community resources; and (2) developing strategies to address diseases with high quality-of-life (morbidity) burden...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Population Health Public Health Quality chronic conditions culture of health Diabetes hypertension New York City New York City Health Hospitals Social Determinants of Health Source Type: blogs