Introduction
At the global level, governments and private sectors have tried to improve healthcare systems using approaches that enhance the quality of care for individuals. In the contemporary world, value-based care has emerged as a solution for people to get the suitable care required at an affordable rate. However, populations continue to suffer from poor health outcomes and increased cost of treatment. This paper will explore the field of population health management with a specific focus on examples, strategies, and factors affecting proper administration.
Examples of Population Health Management
Integrated delivery systems including accountable care organizations and patient-centered treatment homes have arisen to be at the forefront of managing chronic illnesses within populations. According to Daumit et al. (2019), the target of all accountable care organizations and patient-centred treatment home initiatives is to ensure coordination and to pay for quality care. Governments are continuously establishing different payment models to accomplish the best health outcomes at an affordable cost (Hibbard et al., 2017). For instance, in the United States, commercial insurers are collaborating with healthcare providers to seek reward value rather than only the volume of offered services. Hibbard et al. (2017) noted that clinicians should be able to forecast when the patient is more likely to be at high risk. With the support of data that is an integral part of population health management, patient health, as well as the quality of care, is effectively monitored.
There are implementations of risk stratification as well as coordination tools that assist the team in managing care to intervene and coordinate for higher-risk patients. Further, health care units, and professions make high use of engagement tools that might be leveraged such as campaign tools, chatbots, and patient health records (Hibbard et al., 2017). The use of primary care providers with other involved teams from different fields, disease registers, and electronic health records is critical in identifying patients who are at risk. Accordingly, there is a chance for healthcare professionals, policymakers, and public health experts to join efforts in improving population care.
Factors Affecting Population Health Management
Many factors act as determinants of the health and wellbeing of a population, including education, culture, gender, and socio-economics. According to Shokouh et al. (2017), these factors make some groups of people healthier than others. A relationship exists between health and income, as salaries are strong predictors of health. Populations with low statuses in the economy acquire poor education, experience unemployment, and access lower class jobs with bad working environments. These issues impact access to healthy settings and suitable medical care facilities.
Social determinants involve conditions in which populations bear, live, nurture, and work that affect an extensive variety of health as well as life quality outcomes. Shokouh et al. (2017) argued that resources enhancing life quality might have significant inspiration on the health outcomes of populations. Such resources include reasonable and safe housing, availability of healthy food, safety public, education access, local emergency, and an environment that is free of life-threatening factors (Shokouh et al., 2017). Public health inequalities have highly contributed to the spread of most diseases. The most common conditions involve inactive community lifestyle, unhealthy diet, physical features where people live without access to the high-quality healthcare system, or lack of insurance coverage. All these conditions interact and influence population behaviour and lead to social and economic patterning of health and diseases.
Minority groups experience significant disparities in accessing health care the world over. There is a considerable inequality in health between the blacks and the whites in America, Maori, and non-Maori in New Zealand, and Aboriginal and native groups in Australia (McIntyre et al., 2017). Based on one example, the Maori population is highly vulnerable to disabilities and ill health. Additionally, the mortality rates of Maori people are estimated to be double that of non-Maori. At the same time, Maori have reduced rates of hospitalization than non-Maori in spite of their increased need for medication. Accordingly, it means that economic conditions affect not only the provision but also the consumption of quality healthcare.
Strategies for Population Health Management
Population health management involves the desire to keep a group of patients as healthy as possible, reducing the necessities of expensive emergency visits, hospitalization, as well as procedures. Any serious trial to enhance people’s health should address health care issues as well as inherent patient characteristics linked to preventable mortality and premature morbidity in a country (Long et al., 2017). Population health management needs considerable focus on the fundamental elements that create a growing environment where it is possible to establish a greater understanding of what requires to be considered.
The health of humans has been regarded to be made up of primary elements within a provided populace that make it easier to generate the understanding of the existing developmental measures that are being formed within a specific focus. Therefore, population health management considers three critical components that involve the network of health care providers, personal accountability, and individuals’ environment (Wager et al., 2017). The developed personal environment requires putting into consideration vital foundations that play a primary role in generating a greater setting under which it is promising to make easy healthy selections.
The perspectives of population health are established to generate a better comprehension of the fundamental complications within the development of quality healthcare in countries. The effort put into a group’s health outcome generates a growing environment under which it is straightforward to form positive and better discernment. Consequently, it is unproblematic to acquire a good insight for the group outcomes to be based on primary health choices within a community. Population health management equally focuses on the fact that there is a need to facilitate the integration of knowledge across various factors that affect health and its results (Wager et al., 2017). The general emphasis of population health management involves improving the health outcomes of different clusters by concentrating on primary deterministic factors that affect the healthcare of people.
Conclusion
Considering everything, many governments and private-sector organizations are trying to improve the health of persons. Through population health management, many groups including low- and high-class individuals are able to access affordable healthcare. The examples of modern health management in populaces include Accountable and Centered Medical Home, the introduction of insurances, and technologies in healthcare systems. These practices are accomplished through strategies such as a considerable stress on the fundamental elements that make it possible for people to access quality health. Significantly, the research has identified three critical components for strategies involving a focus on the network of health care providers, personal accountability, and individuals’ environment. There is a need for more research to promote population health management based on effective techniques, strategies, and prevention of inhibiting factors.
References
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Hibbard, J. H., Greene, J., Sacks, R. M., Overton, V., & Parrotta, C. (2017). Improving population health management strategies: Identifying patients who are more likely to be users of avoidable costly care and those more likely to develop a new chronic disease. Health Services Research, 52(4), 1297-1309.
Long, P., Abrams, M., Milstein, A., Anderson, G., Apton, K. L., & Dahlberg, M. (2017). Effective care for high-need patients. National Academy of Medicine.
McIntyre, C., Harris, M. G., Baxter, A. J., Leske, S., Diminic, S., Gone, J. P. & Whiteford, H. (2017). Assessing service use for mental health by Indigenous populations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States of America: A rapid review of population surveys. Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(1), 67.
Shokouh, S. M. H., Mohammad, A. R. A. B., Emamgholipour, S., Rashidian, A., Montazeri, A., & Zaboli, R. (2017). Conceptual models of social determinants of health: A narrative review. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 46(4), 435-446.
Wager, K. A., Lee, F. W., & Glaser, J. P. (2017). Health care information systems: A practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.