Population health refers to the health outcomes of a specified group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within the group.
Often, these groups consist of geographic populations such as certain communities, chronic condition cohorts, or racial groups. However, they can also include ethnic groups, prisoners, employees, people with a disability, or any other group that can be clearly defined.
When it comes to population health, the health outcomes of any one of these groups are valuable information to medical groups, ACOs, IPAs, care managers, and policymakers.
Population Health in More Detail
Population health does not refer to the overall health of the entire country’s population. Instead, it is more interested in the distribution of health within a group.
Overall, it should not be taken into account on its own to evaluate outcomes. This is because the wealthier part of the population may be, on average, a lot healthier than the poorer members of the group. This difference would mean that the overall health would not show the actual state of affairs.
Instead, the goal is always to distribute various cohorts so that insights are available in a given group and patients can receive a health score that is high enough to help them lead a healthy life overall.
Health Cohorts
Numerous health determinants and social determinants of health will show what causes groups within a population to be healthy or unhealthy. Some of them include the following:
The inherent value of measuring the health of a population is that it gives a perspective that integrates knowledge across many groups and many factors that affect health, influence health, and cause certain health outcomes.
Population health is important for research because it allows for specific investigations into a single factor that causes either poor or improved health. It thus will enable physicians, care managers, and policymakers to make more informed decisions about what needs to be done for overall improvements.
How TempDev Can Help With Population Health
TempDev’s team of experienced consultants, developers, and trainers is here to support enhanced accessibility and customized features and templates. This enables you and your patients to have more control over data with improved transparency.
As part of our streamlining process, we help you implement the Population Health Management, Patient Portal, API, and other tools to better support safety, patient engagement, and security. We also help improve interoperability between health systems, including the implementation of best practices. From dashboards to automation and workflow redesign, TempDev offers the comprehensive resources and tools you need to ensure compliance.
Contact us here or by calling us at 888.TEMP.DEV to improve the interoperability of your system.
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