From healthcare to health: A proposed pathway to population health.
Innovations in payment are encouraging clinical-community partnerships that address health determinants. However, little is known about how healthcare systems transform and partner to improve population health. We synthesized views of population health experts from nine organizations and illustrated the resulting model using examples from four health systems. The transformation requires a foundation of primary care, connectors and integrators that span the boundaries, sharing of goals among participants, aligned funding and incentives, and a supporting infrastructure, all leading to a virtuous cycle of collaboration. Policies are needed that will provide funding and incentives to encourage spread beyond early adopter organizations.
Department of National Prevention Programs at the Federal Office of Public Health, Schwarztorstrasse 96, Bern, 3003 Switzerland; University of Zürich, Institute for Primary Care, Pestalozzistrasse 24, Zürich, 8091 Switzerland. Electronic address: Ursula.koch@bag.admin.ch.
Ursula
U
Koch
Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Cambridge, MA, 02139 USA; Cambridge Health Alliance, USA. Electronic address: sstout@ihi.org.
Somava
S
Stout
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Health Care Policy and Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, USA. Electronic address: landon@hcp.med.harvard.edu.
Bruce E
BE
Landon
Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, USA; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: russell_phillips@hms.harvard.edu.
Russell S
RS
Phillips
D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006268:Health Facilities / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007857:Leadership; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States
Integration with public health; Population health; Population medicine; Social determinants of health