Is your organization looking for a quick tune-up to your existing population health management approach, or are you just beginning to formulate a population health strategy? Then look no further. In this series of posts, we’ll be sharing 7 “quick wins” that can be used to improve an existing strategy, or quickly implemented to derive value from existing resources.

First up: leveraging your existing clinical programs

Most large provider, payer and population health organizations have programs in place to facilitate care coordination for complex patients, support specific conditions, or to support transitions from one care location to another. Oftentimes, these programs have availability for additional patients. How can you quickly align patient needs with available resources? This is where the ACG System can help.

To get started, generate an inventory of existing care programs, criteria for patient enrollment, and program completion requirements. This will help you see what programs are currently offered and what kinds of patients could benefit from enrollment. In addition to your organization’s programs, you may find community programs or locally-funded initiatives. Using the patient enrollment criteria, you can use the ACG System to quickly generate a case-finding search of your existing patients. See who may be a good candidate for a care program, who is not already enrolled in a program, and refer as appropriate. You may also use your care program list to compare current program enrollment to specific clinical goals, which will help you evaluate whether patients are enrolled in the appropriate services.*

The Win

While this exercise won’t replace a full population health strategy, it can be deployed quickly to improve patient access to services and internal resource allocation. Filling existing care programs to capacity allows your organization to maximize clinical resources by directing patients to existing programs, rather than creating new initiatives from scratch. You can also ensure your existing care programs have optimal enrollment by catching patients who could benefit, who may not have been enrolled. This means increased effectiveness of clinical interventions and funded resources—a win-win for patient outcomes and your organization as a whole.

Want to know more?

Read about care coordination in action at Johns Hopkins HealthCare by clicking here.

While these techniques are focused on US customers, we have parallel suggestions for international ACG System users, developed by our team based in Europe with support from one of our UK users, Sollis. Please contact us for more information.

*If you have questions about these applications, please contact your ACG System account manager or acginfo@jh.edu.