Improving the Health Of Populations
Population health management is the desire to keep the patient population as healthy as possible, minimizing the need for expensive emergency visits, hospitalizations, and procedures. Any serious attempt to improve the health of a population must address health care disparities and inherent patient characteristics related to preventable morbidity and premature mortality in this country. The lack of emphasis on the social determinants of health they relate to population health management is a major problem leading to the suboptimal performance of our healthcare system. Research by the Wisconsin Population Health Institute (2015) found that factors outside of traditional boundaries of health care delivery, …show more content…
Briefly, the hub is a larger healthcare organization such as a hospital system or managed care plan. The hubs allocate funding to and coordinate activities of the spokes, community-based organizations. Both the healthcare system and community-based organizations work together to manage health promotion activities and health and social services delivery. This is mainly done by the healthcare system contracting and purchasing services through the community organizations. Though relatively new, there is emerging evidence to suggest hub and spoke models may be a promising solution to improving the health of populations in rural settings. For example, researchers in Australia examined the implementation of hub and spoke models in rural areas of North West Queensland, Australia and found that these type of models increased occasions of services, workforce length of stay, referrals and cost effectiveness (Battye & McTaggart, 2003).The United States has also seen success using this type of model to serve the needs of a defined population. Recently, the University of New Mexico launched a project called the extension of community health care outcomes (ECHO) and partnered with over 400 community coalitions with the goal of providing more access to Hepatitis C treatment to all individuals in New Mexico, targeting those in rural and underserved areas (Harwood, 2016). Hub and spoke …show more content…
Access to care is a major issue concerning population management, especially in underserved and rural areas. It has been well-documented racial and ethnic minorities have experienced suboptimal access to care (Sealy-Jefferson, Vickers, Elam, & Wilson, 2015). For patients, successful implementation of hub and spoke models, which bring not only health services but social services supports with partnership from community-based organizations, can help mitigate the effects of detrimental social determinants of health affecting underserved and rural
Population health management is the desire to keep the patient population as healthy as possible, minimizing the need for expensive emergency visits, hospitalizations, and procedures. Any serious attempt to improve the health of a population must address health care disparities and inherent patient characteristics related to preventable morbidity and premature mortality in this country. The lack of emphasis on the social determinants of health they relate to population health management is a major problem leading to the suboptimal performance of our healthcare system. Research by the Wisconsin Population Health Institute (2015) found that factors outside of traditional boundaries of health care delivery, …show more content…
Briefly, the hub is a larger healthcare organization such as a hospital system or managed care plan. The hubs allocate funding to and coordinate activities of the spokes, community-based organizations. Both the healthcare system and community-based organizations work together to manage health promotion activities and health and social services delivery. This is mainly done by the healthcare system contracting and purchasing services through the community organizations. Though relatively new, there is emerging evidence to suggest hub and spoke models may be a promising solution to improving the health of populations in rural settings. For example, researchers in Australia examined the implementation of hub and spoke models in rural areas of North West Queensland, Australia and found that these type of models increased occasions of services, workforce length of stay, referrals and cost effectiveness (Battye & McTaggart, 2003).The United States has also seen success using this type of model to serve the needs of a defined population. Recently, the University of New Mexico launched a project called the extension of community health care outcomes (ECHO) and partnered with over 400 community coalitions with the goal of providing more access to Hepatitis C treatment to all individuals in New Mexico, targeting those in rural and underserved areas (Harwood, 2016). Hub and spoke …show more content…
Access to care is a major issue concerning population management, especially in underserved and rural areas. It has been well-documented racial and ethnic minorities have experienced suboptimal access to care (Sealy-Jefferson, Vickers, Elam, & Wilson, 2015). For patients, successful implementation of hub and spoke models, which bring not only health services but social services supports with partnership from community-based organizations, can help mitigate the effects of detrimental social determinants of health affecting underserved and rural