Population Health
- Category: Healthcare
- Published: Tuesday, March 03 2020 14:15
- Written by Super User
- Hits: 4482
Bryan Research has worked on many population health initiatives over the last decade of operations.
Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash
Our expertise in systems thinking underpins our philosophy on population health, and has produced outstanding results. Our multi level approach to healthcare systems translates to the world of population health in two main categories:
Overall, System - Wide Population Health
Population health is the understanding and maintenance of health in a population of individuals, such that they achieve the best health they are capable of by addressing all factors contributing to their health. This includes clinical, genetic, environmental, social, political and financial aspects among others. As such, our philosophy on creating an effective population health system revolves around the concepts of connectedness and knowledge. For people to build the network of supporting resources they need to address the individual issues in their lives, these resources need knowledge of each other's existence, capabilities and ability and willingness to work on truly integrating service delivery to the patient.
Knowledge is only one component though. The true integration starts to emerge when that knowledge is enhanced by a human to human relationship, as participants in the network begin to understand each other on a much deeper level. BR was a part of the Vermont Blueprint for Health's Care Coordination workgroup and contributed significantly to the establishment of that nascent population health framework in the early 2010's. We have followed on by regular contributions to the Accountable Community for Health framework in two VT HSA's, which have established local and statewide networks and relationships which are starting to yield excellent results. BR has developed unique tools for field evaluation of SDOH (Social Determinants of Health) utilizing the work and discoveries of the Camden Hot Spotting teams. We can offer these tools to population health workgroups and instruction on how to most effectively utilize them.
Factor - Specific Population Health
A component of population health is the evaluation of the population for specific conditions. A common example is the control of Diabetes using A1c levels as a marker. We have worked with CAH's and clinics on developing Panel Management systems to identify and manage Diabetes, Obesity, Smoking and other factors as a regular part of their practice workflows. This has often been integrated with a Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) implementation. As these systems are implemented and mature, the state of conditions in the population is brought under control.