Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/644565
36 POPULATION HEALTH Most Providers Lag in Implementing Population Health Management: 5 Findings By Kelly Gooch M ost healthcare providers continue to fall behind in progress toward population health and value- based models of care despite broad agreement it will be important for future market success, according to a national study by Numerof & Associates. The study, released Feb. 2, synthesizes survey responses from more than 300 executives and in-depth interviews with more than 100 key decision makers across U.S. healthcare delivery organizations. Here are five findings from the study. 1. More than half — 54 percent — of survey respondents believe population health is "critically important" to the future success of their organization. Nearly all — 97 percent — of survey respondents believe it is more than "somewhat important," the study found. 2. However, the majority of respondents from organizations in agreements with upside gain or downside risk said 20 percent or less of their revenues move through those agreements. 3. Two-thirds of survey respondents view their organization's ability to manage variation in cost at the physician level as "average" or worse. 4. Less than 60 percent of survey respondents believe payers as more than "somewhat willing" to enter into cost/ quality risk agreements. 5. The report found differences based on geography. Sixty-nine percent of survey respondents in New England reported their organizations were in an agreement with the potential for both upside gain and downside risk, compared to 43 percent in the South. "U.S. healthcare organizations are entering a period of greater change and disruption than any industry this side of taxicabs," Rita Numerof, PhD, president of Numerof & Associates, said in a prepared statement. "However, our study finds that most providers are still just testing the waters with these models and to date there's still far more talk than action when it comes to population health management." "The traditional players in the payer, provider and manufacturer spaces are wrestling simultaneously with not just the question of how to change — but how fast," Michael Abrams, managing partner of Numerof & Associates, added. "A select set of leaders are making real progress, but overall we're still a long way from where we need to be." n [Editor's Note: In addition to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, other Chicago hospitals with Cure Violence/ CeaseFire programs include Advocate Christ Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital. Current neighborhood sites of the programs include Little Vil- lage, South Shore, Roseland and Woodlawn.] We've got a team funded by grants and supported by peo- ple's personal efforts to intervene with victims of gun vio- lence and their families. When they come in with a gunshot wound, they might be amenable to changing their lifestyle or environment, if they were actively involved in violence. at team is led by prevention chief Kimberly Joseph, MD, who is also a trauma doctor, and Rev. Carol Reese, who leads implementation of those programs and is also a pre- vention counselor. ey deal with what happens to a patient's psyche. May- be they become anxious and develop behaviors that make them more amenable to being shot again or committing violence, or they are edgy and [inaccurately] interpret innocent movements of people in their environment and might shoot them. So that self-awareness is what we hope to instill in these patients through these teams. We also do a lot of PTSD work. But this debate has to be elevated beyond a local level to more regional and national level. Everybody has an opin- ion on this, but there are certain people who are actually responsible for solving this issue. We have to look at their performance and see if have they solved the problem or not. Remember that during election season. Dr. Humikowski: It's really challenging when you apply top-quality medical care to victims of gun violence and then send them back into the community where they got hurt. It doesn't feel like you've done anything for them. We as physicians, as health systems, have to have a voice on the state and national scale when it comes to impacting these problems. As a physician, to imagine that you could have an im- pact on a problem this big with your individual patient is short-sighted. We need to think bigger and more globally. How do we get guns off the streets? How do we keep them out of the hands of criminals? How do we as physicians, lobby for that on a national level to recognize that this really is a public health problem? If we start to frame the conver- sation around what this costs in terms of health and dollars, rather than the way the conversations have been framed so far — which is, "Look at how bad this is, look at the drama, look at the lives lost," — let's look at the numbers. If we look at the numbers in terms of victims, it's staggering. If we look at the numbers in terms of cost to society, both in terms of life-years lost and dollars, which is how we look at other healthcare problems, those numbers might help people in the hospital administration com- munity start to realize this really is everybody's prob- lem. I would encourage anybody to understand their state and national legislation that impacts this problem in their personal community, write to their representa- tives and fight for things that make sense, like resuming dedicated funding for research into the problem. n