69% of healthcare leaders say that they are either fully committed to or have a pilot program underway for population health management, according to new HealthLeaders Media report. The report, Population Health: Investing in a Risk-Based Future, sponsored by McKesson includes data from a survey of HealthLeaders Media’s 8,000-plus member executive research panel.
While on the surface it appears that providers are fully engaged in population health initiatives, one of the key indicators is the degree to which they have exposure to upside and downside risk. Taking on risk and exploring new financial risk structures is an essential aspect of developing population health competency and effectiveness. The report finds that 42% of providers have risk-based revenue of less than 10% (some have no risk-based revenue at all), which suggests that population health management has yet to reach critical mass.
Other key findings from the report include:
– Providers are anticipating aggressive investment in IT infrastructure to support population health with the largest increase in responses found on risk stratification, from 40% up to 66%, analytics to identify gaps in care from 46% up to 68%, analytics using payer claims data from 50% up to 68%, and analytics using population data from 55% up to 71%.
– 42% of health leaders rank shared savings with providers to be the top financial risk structure
– The top three population health initiatives are physician engagement (68%), patient engagement (55%), and care management (51%).
-Clinically integrated networks (64%) represent the top strategic initiative for improving the health of a defined population, followed by patient-centered medical home–related efforts (57%), and alliance of providers (49%).
– Patient registries (63%), data warehouses (57%), and analytics using population data (55%) are the current top population health management investments areas for providers.
– While 73% of respondents say employed physicians at their organizations have at least some compensation exposed to risk for quality-based outcomes, 27% have no compensation at risk at all.
-Due to the complexity of the undertaking and the magnitude of the investment, it is generally larger organizations and health systems that are currently fully committed to population health.
– Based on net patient revenue, a greater share of large (53%) and medium organizations (46%) than small organizations (34%) say they are fully committed. However, while 50% of health systems are fully committed, we also see greater shares of physician organizations (46%) than hospitals (33%) are fully committed. So, while size and resources are beneficial, an organization’s ability to adapt and change direction also is important.
To download the full report, visit http://research.healthleadersmedia.com/content52872/
