The term "population health" has been used in healthcare for quite some time, but the meaning behind it continues to change. At the Becker's Hospital Review 6th Annual Meeting, three healthcare leaders discussed where population health stands today and how it continues to develop. "This is rapidly evolving," said Brian Silverstein, MD, managing partner, HC Wisdom. "We hope to understand where we've been and where we are going."
Market growth
Population health, tightly linked to concepts like accountable care and value-based payment, is in various stages across the country. "There is a lot of variety across the United States. There are slow moving markets, quick moving markets and others that are not moving at all," said David Muhlestein, PhD, director of research, Leavitt Partners. Though the movement towards embracing and mastering population health may be fragmented, it is the minority view that it will fall by the wayside. "The conversation has evolved beyond the 'if,' it is no more a question of 'when,'" said Dr. Muhlestein.
For the most part, healthcare is still in the learning stage of population. Some markets such as Southern California, which never truly left the managed care model, or Boston, driven by Massachusetts healthcare reform, are further ahead. "They are the legacy population health providers," said Dr. Muhlestein.
Risk stratification
Risk stratification and management is one of the true keys to unlocking the population health puzzle, but when considering large, diverse patient populations this is no simple task. "We have been great at building systems, but when you start to talk population health it is not just those patients we see within our bricks and mortar it is all physicians and providers in our network. How do you capture that data?" said Timothy Thompson, senior vice president and CIO of BayCare Health System.
Vendors offer myriad population health and data solutions, but the true solution has yet to be found. "You need the right variables for an effective model. We fall back on claims data and this is quite challenging," said Dr. Silverstein. Claims data, while not without value, only provides a retrospective picture. The next step is to gather forward-looking data to better understand the needs of a population. "We are building registries based on certain disease categories and trying to understand the gaps in care," said Mr. Thompson.
While patient management is important, risk management can be applied to the physician side of the equation. "It is easier to manage their behavior," said Dr. Muhlestein.
Patient engagement
While the bulk of population health responsibility rests on healthcare providers' shoulders, there can be no true success without patient involvement. "Amazon thinks about readers and writers. We need to think about patients and providers. Portals would be great 5 years ago. But now it is 2015. We need to connect with them on the mobile. Where and what do they want?" said Mr. Thompson.