Fluent Essays

Scenario As the healthcare paradigm shifts from treating illness toward preventing illness, providers are being challenged to adopt new models of care delivery and to embrace evolving concepts of value-driven reimbursement strategies. Moreover, healthcare providers must give increased attention to improving healthcare in a manner that improves health outcomes across population groups for the entire nation. For example, data must be collected on populations and assessed to determine the effectiveness of different approaches. Read the article,  Navigating-Population-Health-Management-Challenges.pdf -see attached document for insight into some of the issues that providers face in making the shift toward population health management. Imagine that you are the new Chief Population Officer for an integrated health system, and you are tasked by your health system CEO with identifying the challenges of such an implementation, analyzing why these challenges exist, discovering research-based proposed solutions for these challenges, and debating the pros and cons of each of these solutions. Instructions Your assignment consists of three parts. Part 1: Identify Challenges Identify five of the most significant challenges to implementing a population-health approach for improving health outcomes and promoting wellness in the United States. Each challenge should be a sub-heading in this part of the paper. Present the challenge, describe it, and provide some history or background, based on credible research sources.  Part 2: Analysis of Challenges Explain each challenge you identified in Part 1 and provide a comprehensive discussion about why each has broad and far-reaching implications for improving the health of the U.S. population. Use data and scholarly research to support your thinking and bolster your discussion. Part 3: Discover Proposed Solutions Discuss proposed solutions to each of your five identified challenges. These are to be solutions you have found in your research. Discuss the pros and cons of the solutions you have discovered. What are the arguments for and against these proposed solutions and by whom? This requires critical analysis. You will want to assess the solutions, as well as their detractors and supporters and any possible biases for each. You will want to think through how solutions would be implemented, funded, supported, and received by various stakeholders such as medical professionals, government, and the public. Requirements: The complete paper should address the three parts and to include a title and reference page. You must include at least eight credible sources, five of which must be scholarly sources from peer reviewed journals. Format your paper according to APA guidelines.  Rubric:  -Identified 5 significant challenges to implementing a population health approach for improving health outcomes and promoting wellness in the US. Offered a comprehensive description of the challenges with historical context or background.  - Provided a thorough explanation of why each of the 5 challenges has broad and far-reaching implications for improving the health of the US population. Included data and multiple (4 or greater) examples. Also included credible research to support assertions.  - Provided a comprehensive discussion of the proposed solution to each of the 5 challenges as indicated in the literature (research).  - Included a comprehensive discussion on the pros and cons of the proposed solutions. The discussion included an adequate critical analysis of the proposed solutions. The analysis addressed possible biases of the viewpoints offered. MARCH/APRIL 2018h e a l t h m g t t e c h . c o m 24 :::::::::: POPULATION HEALTH P opulation health management is recognized as a means of improv- ing care quality, clinical outcomes, effi ciency, and even fi nancial outcomes. Because it offers so many benefi ts, population health management seems poised to become a practice that is widely adopted by healthcare provid- ers. But, transitioning to a population health model is not without challenges, and many healthcare teams run into obstacles ranging from staffi ng to strat- egy development. Fortunately, smart use of the patient engagement technol- ogy that most teams already have in place can make implementing a popu- lation health program less of a struggle. Will there be staffi ng challenges? A popular belief among healthcare providers is that population health management programs either put sig- nificant strain on staff or require ad- ditional hires. In fact, a West survey revealed that 44\% of providers expect that adopting a population health pro- gram will create staffing issues. It is not surprising that healthcare teams feel population health management requires staffing adjustments. A well- executed program involves analyzing clinical data, stratifying patients by risk and disease, developing personal- ized outreach campaigns for subpop- ulations of patients, regularly com- municating with patients, monitoring patients between visits, and taking steps to proactively help patients avoid adverse health issues. These responsibilities are not part of the normal routine for a lot of healthcare teams. As a result, most providers do not believe their current staff can sup- port these efforts. In reality, many of the tasks associated with population health management can be automated and done very efficiently. The task of patient outreach is a prime example. As an example, it is not realistic for a physician to manually contact 500 pa- tients on a routine basis to see how well they are managing their blood pressure. But, staff can easily automate this out- reach and send targeted messages to a group of patients that have elevated or high blood pressure. Patients might re- ceive a text message reminding them to fi ll their blood pressure medication and take it as directed. They could be sent a voice message that prompts them to complete a survey about their lifestyle and symptoms. Or, patients may get an email with tips for reducing their sodi- um intake. Messages like these, that are relevant to a group of patients, can be sent on a one-to-many basis. This type of patient communication has a large reach, but it requires minimal staff time to execute. The point is, the repetitive outreach that benefi ts groups of pa- tients with similar health conditions and needs can be performed automati- cally—so the strain on clinical staff is limited. Staffi ng becomes much less of a problem when teams rely on auto- mated technology-enabled communi- cations to handle portions of the popu- lation health management process. Developing a strategy More than one-third of healthcare teams are uncertain of how to develop a population health strategy. West’s survey revealed that 38\% of providers feel there is a lack of population health management best practices, which makes designing a population health strategy challenging. Healthcare teams can gain the in- sights they need for developing their population health strategy by examin- ing their own clinical data. Information from electronic health records is use- ful for identifying what groups make up a larger population, and from that information, the types of support and communication needed. Practices will typically want to design a set of com- munications to engage and support patients with common chronic condi- tions. That could mean creating a cam- paign geared toward managing obesity, and another campaign aimed at man- aging diabetes. When designing patient outreach campaigns, healthcare teams don’t Navigating population healthhealth management challenges need to reinvent the wheel. They sim- ply need to craft messages that will engage patients and encourage them to do things to manage their specifi c con- ditions. A clinic’s diabetic patients can be assigned a series of automated com- munications that alert them when they are due for an A1c draw, prompt them to schedule routine foot or eye exams or report their glucose levels to their care manager. If providers consider the ideal behaviors and actions they want to see from patients, and build their engagement communication strategy around those things, they will be on the right track. Most providers will want to dedi- cate a lot of effort to chronic-disease management, and rightfully so. How- ever, one tip teams should remember when building their population health program is to focus on preventing is- sues across all patients under their care. That includes prevention for “healthy” patients, too. Teams can de- velop outreach campaigns that engage all patients within their population, so patients who do not have chronic con- ditions can maintain their good health. Conclusion Despite the obstacles, population health management provides many benefits for patients and providers. Healthcare teams that want to pur- sue a population health management program can minimize challenges by starting to use technology to automate key processes, and engage and sup- port patients. HM T Allison Hart Vice President of Marketing, TeleVox Solutions at West How healthcare teams can use technology to support population health programs. By Allison Hart HMT201803-04_PopHealth-West_MECH_GH.indd 24HMT201803-04_PopHealth-West_MECH_GH.indd 24 2/15/2018 3:09:23 PM2/15/2018 3:09:23 PM Copyright of Health Management Technology is the property of NP Communications, LLC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holders express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.