Mark Behl works in the field of healthcare for Renown Health in Reno, Nevada. Here Mark shares some insight into population health.

1. Moving Toward Population
Health
Mark Behl, Renown Health

2. Population Health
• As hospitals adapt to value-based payments and delivery models,
they are figuring ways to evolve their business models and extend
services beyond their four walls.
• With the shift from volume- to value-based payment and care
delivery models, hospitals and care systems are exploring different
paths for organizational transformation to achieve Triple Aim
outcomes — better care, better health and lower costs.
• This involves going beyond the hospital’s traditional role — efforts
that are focused on caring and personalizing services for individuals
admitted to the hospital — and providing services outside the
facility’s four walls to more proactively engage patients and
communities.

3. Achieving Triple Aim
Outcomes
• Population health management is one upstream
intervention that can achieve Triple Aim outcomes in a
value-based environment.
• It involves integrating preventive principles into care
delivery to improve the health of a defined population.
• Key elements of population health management include
identifying health determinants and addressing modifiable
factors, promoting health and wellness, and implementing
disease prevention and management programs.

4. Achieving Triple Aim
Outcomes
• Two AHA guides, “Managing Population Health: The Role of the Hospital”
and “The Role of Small and Rural Hospitals and Care Systems in Effective
Population Health Partnerships,” outline how population health serves as a
strategic platform to improve health outcomes.
• These guides explain how population health resides at the intersection of
three distinct mechanisms:
• Increasing the prevalence of evidence-based, preventive health services
and behaviors
• Improving care quality and patient safety
• Advancing care coordination across the health care continuum

5. Population Health in a Value-
Based Environment
• In a volume-based environment, hospitals and care systems implement small-scale,
disease-specific programs.
• As the health care field moves toward more value-based payment approaches,
organizations will need to create major systemic and cultural shifts to implement population
health management.
• Successful population health management programs align mission with services that
support a defined population and leverage internal and external resources to address
community needs.
• Hospitals and care systems that successfully developed a sustainable population health
management program have fee-for-value contracts that incentivize programs to achieve
population health goals.
• Many health care organizations already are going beyond traditional partnerships and
collaborating with community organizations, payers and other clinical care sites to address
health care issues.

6. The Second Curve of
Population Health
• A new Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence guide, “The Second Curve of Population Health,” highlights six
tactical areas that advance population health management in hospitals and care systems:
• The guide provides metrics for evaluating population health initiatives and includes several hospital case
studies.
• Value-based reimbursement
• Seamless care across all settings
• Proactive and systematic patient education
• Workplace competencies and education on population health
• Integrated, comprehensive HIT that supports risk stratification of patients with real-time accessibility
• Mature community partnerships to collaborate on community-based solutions
• The guide provides metrics for evaluating population health initiatives and includes several hospital case
studies.

7. Rhoby Tio, M.P.P.A., is a former program
manager for the Health Research & Educational
Trust. To access “The Second Curve of
Population Health” and other resources on
population health management, go to
www.hpoe.org.