Marketers Take on New Role with Population Health Management: Success Measured by Long-Term Engagement
by Sheryl S. Jackson
Population health management is not a new concept, but it is taking center stage in the health care industry’s transformation. Driven by the economics of a transition from a fee-based payment system to a value-based payment system, population health management is an important strategy to reduce the cost of care while improving the quality of health in communities.
“The health care financing system is ahead of the clinical delivery system,” says Phillip Oravetz, MD, medical director for accountable care at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans. “Health systems are now focused on managing the total cost of care along the entire continuum of care, which means managing the health of communities or specific populations, not just individual patients.”
“The traditional way of providing care … is no longer effective,” says Phyllis Simpson Sherard, PhD, executive administrator of the Wyoming Institute of Population Health, a division of the Cheyenne (WY) Regional Health System. One reason for the need to change is an aging population in which patients often have more than one chronic condition and multiple medications. “The assembly-line approach, in which people moved from provider to provider, is changing as payers insist on care management that includes disease prevention, health promotion, and psychosocial services, if needed,” Sherard notes.