PopulationHealth

Five Hurdles In

Mark behl

The health industry has yet todefine the true meaning of

population health.

According toimprovingpopulationhealth.org,

population health is defined as thehealth outcomes of a group of

individuals, including the distributionof such outcomes within the group.

Before population health becomescommon practice, there will be some

hurdles that need to be addressed.

Let’s take a look at some of thesehurdles according to

healthcareitnews.com.

1. Lack of Compliance byClinicians

Many health networks have appliedevidence-based pathways, protocols anddecision trees outlining how they wantpatients treated by doctors and nurses.

However, getting clinicians to comply aswell is another hurdle in itself.

2. Too Little Clinical Care forPatients

Poor adherence continues and it leads tomassive over-utilization of the systemdue in part to a number of different

technologies coming to market.

Patients and health insurance companiesare changing the way people pay for

health insurance.

3. Population Health "Hotspotting"Not Yet Widespread

The practice of population health involvesproviders taking a look at data analytics to findpatient populations that consume large portions

of cost care and identify ways to bring andchange to those population subsets.

However, because it’s still an emergingpractice, the data is not quite there yet to be

scrubbed.

4. Abundance of Data

Sometimes when you’re trying to solve or find aproblem, data can help. The problem is thatwhen you have too much data to analyze, itbecomes hard to figure out where to start.

Everyday, patients are constantly generatingnew data and it’s hard to account for every

piece of data.

5. The Need to Activate MorePatients

Providers need to better figure out how toincorporate their patients, whether that’s assimple as taking medications regularly or...

...actually changing long-standing lifestylehabits, to drive adherence because it’s the

key to better outcomes, reducingoverutilization and ultimately slashing costs.

Mark BehlRenown Health