Shifting Toward Population Health
Healthcare administrators direct and coordinate medical services in facilities such as hospitals, public health agencies, and managed care organizations. In order to accomplish this directive, healthcare administrators need to be current on mandates, health initiatives, and population health programs. This requires the exploration of a variety of resources on health initiatives and public health programs.
The term population health was introduced in 2003 by Dave Kindig and Greg Stoddart who defined the term as “the health outcome of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2018, para. 1). Nash, Fabius, Skoufalos, Clarke, and Horowitz (2016) argue that the only way to improve the total health of the United States is to shift our focus from healthcare that is reactive to healthcare that proactive and promotes health and wellness. We spend a lot of time treating and focusing on a patient’s disease/illness and spend little time focusing on the conditions that contribute to the disease/illness. For that reason, it is important to understand social determinants of health (SDOH) and how they factor into the comprehensive picture of population health (Zangerle, 2016).
Post a single 3- or 4-paragraph response that addresses the following prompts (your Instructor will notify you of the due date):
Choose a federal or state initiative that focuses on population health – choose a topic that interests you
Explain how that initiative shifts the focus from the individual person to population health
Evaluate the importance of shifting from individual health to population health
Consider discussing how you, as an administrator, could collaborate with other healthcare disciplines to ensure the success of the initiative you selected
Explain why understanding and incorporating a focus on social determinants of health is vital to affecting population health.
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). What is population health? https://www.cdc.gov/pophealthtraining/whatis.html
Nash, D., Fabius, E., Skoufalos, A., Clarke, J., & Horowitz, M. (2016). Population health: Creating a culture of wellness (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning
Zangerle, C. (2016). Population health: The importance of social determinants. Nurse Management, 47(2), 17-18. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000479444.75643.e5
