I was thinking about population health today. It’s become a hot topic of discussion now that a lot more healthcare data is available for population health management thanks to EHR adoption. Although, in many ways, the various value based reimbursement and ACO programs are a form of population health. I guess, for me I classify all of these efforts to improve the health of a population as population health.
I just wonder how many organizations are really working on these types of solutions and how much of the population health is just talk. Let’s find out in the poll below.
I’ll be interested to hear how organizations are approaching population health. Also, let’s do another poll to see how much people will be working on population health in the future.
I’d love to hear more details to your responses in the comments. If you are working on population health, what programs are you doing and what IT solutions are you using to support it?
“I was thinking about population health today. It’s become a hot topic of discussion now that a lot more healthcare data is available for population health management thanks to EHR adoption. Although, in many ways, the various value based reimbursement and ACO programs are a form of population health. I guess, for me I classify all of these efforts to improve the health of a population as population health.”
You are right John; a lot more data is available; especially from the claims data (although it might be 60+ days older). A PCP is able to get a holistic view of the patient’s timelines and a complete 360 degree view. Where a EMR is able to store and re-present the data of healthcare activities in the practice or service location, when you add the CCLF data, almost 100% of the data on healthcare activities are available.
ACO and PCMH management is that much more easier, organized and efficient with these additional data integrated. I believe going forward all the payors will resort to providing these data which is upto the application vendor/provider to present it in a meaningful manner. Yes the data made available has to be analyzed to present it in a human readable and decisionable (!) manner.
The company and the program where I am working is for population healthcare management.The VCCI (Vermont Chronic Care Initiative) program is working with the top 5% (high acuity/high cost) of the Vermont Medicaid program and provides case management that is especially helpful for members with low health literacy. The determination of who is in the top 5% is based on procedure and claims data and it is fairly unique technique that is different from other traditionally used prediction models. For more information you may connect with me on LinkedIn.