Thoughts on the Select Step of Your Population Health Program
Let's look at the first step of the Population Health Sycle™, Select, and discuss some important considerations. Things that separate a successful program from a mediocre one.
The first truth is that it’s all about the data. If you don’t begin with the data, you’re building a program on a weak foundation and will surely miss important things in the selection stage. And as you’ll find below, there are many different data sources to consider, let alone analyze and report on.
Other key Selection criteria should include:
Analytics: Do you have the expertise, resources, and tools to analyze the data, operate the program, and report on the outcomes? Are there technologies that can make this effort more efficient?
Prevalence: How prevalent is this within your population? Is it rare, but high cost and poor outcomes, or a large percentage, and how does that impact many of the other considerations below?
Impactfulness: Is the disease or condition you chose impactable in general, and more specifically, do you have the knowledge, resources, and operational ability to move the needle? Can you improve clinical outcomes and costs, or just one or the other? Or perhaps none? And what about the program’s impact on your clinicians? See below.
And speaking of Costs, what are the costs associated with the disease or condition you are selecting? Are they meaningful to your organization, whether you are a payer or a provider of clinical services? How will the cost of the interventions weigh out against the expected savings? Will your program reduce your revenue?
Variance on performance metrics: How do your current results compare to national or local data? Are you way under, doing okay, or ahead? How much do you think you can move this needle?
Social Determinants of Health: How much of the underperformance is due to various Social Determinants of Health issues? Can you impact those? Do you have connections with the community? How much can they impact them as well? Many of these community Organizations have been at it a long time. And as we say, the results we have are based on the system we have built. Perhaps they’ve been at it a long time, but why are the results the way they are?
Contractual requirements: Are you required by contract to provide this program or generate measurable improvements in a metric? Well then, it’s probably a given, but are there subsets of the group that would make your life easier if you selected them? That gets to a later step, Segment, but should be considered here as well
Organizational Mission: Is this part of your Mission, is it something the community needs, or perhaps is asking for? Will it position your organization positively or as a leader?
Clinician engagement: What do your physicians and other clinicians think about this? Are they willing to jump in, or will they roll their eyes and say, “Great, more work”? Do you have the clinical expertise? Do you have the clinical resources to operate the program?
Likelihood to Engage: Will individuals be willing to participate? Is this a condition or disease with some stigma attached? Are there cultural barriers? Do you have or can you get information on their thinking associated with this potential program?
Ready to move your needle?
If you are looking to refine your selection process or want to see how the Population Health Sycle™ can be tailored to your organization’s unique clinical goals, let's connect. Click below to schedule a strategy session and start building a program that delivers real results.