In December 2015, HIMSS Analytics released their Population Health Essentials Brief, offering insight from nearly 200 healthcare executives (C-Suite, administrators, directors & VPs) on their population health initiatives as well as their current and future plans for population health IT solutions. HIMSS Analytics has now released an addendum to the study that focuses on chronic disease management and preventive health and wellness, allowing for even deeper insight into the current practices of population health initiatives in healthcare.
The term “population health” is broadly used to describe different approaches to care for a population of people as patients and as the overall community. For the purposes of our study population health was defined as improving the health outcomes for a defined population in a specific geographic area. A breakdown of respondents by bed size indicated that over 80% of organizations with over 100 beds currently employ a wide range of initiatives focused on population health management.
“HIMSS Analytics wanted to gain additional insight and provide more details into what organizations are actually doing around population health,” said Brendan FitzGerald, Director of Research at HIMSSAnalytics. “Building upon our 2015 Population Health Study, we have narrowed our focus to specific categories within population health to highlight areas of focus, tangible benefits realized, contributing factors to achieving population health goals and the biggest hurdles to success.”
Other highlights include:
– Roughly 11 percent of study respondents with initiatives in place currently use a consultant for their population health strategy.
– Over half of study respondents without current population health initiatives in place plan to employ initiatives in the future.
– Just over a third of organizations with plans to employ population health initiatives in the future plan to use a consultant or would consider it.
– According to the HA Population Health Study follow-up, the leading areas of focus for organizations with chronic disease management initiatives in place are diabetes (75.9%), congestive heart failure (58.6) and COPD (41.4%)
– Roughly 70% of respondents to the HA Population Health Study follow-up with preventive health/wellness initiatives in place focus on workplace health promotion.
