Expanding the Population Health Workforce: Strategic Priorities of Hospital Organizations in the United States

Abstract

The role of hospital contributions to population health is a topic increasingly worthy of attention in the years since the Affordable Care Act. To explore how hospitals themselves consider their role as population health leaders, the authors analyzed data from the 2015 American Hospital Association Annual Population Health Survey, which asks organizations about which strategic priorities should be expanded in order to strengthen their organization's population health workforce. Descriptive statistics for the study sample of 1418 hospitals show that physicians were the most commonly ranked priority, followed by behavioral health professionals. Using multivariate analysis, the professional roles identified were grouped into 5 categories: behavioral health, clinical, data collection, business functions, and social supports and services. Doing so revealed that different types of hospitals were more likely to identify different types of roles as more important. Larger hospitals were more likely than others to identify behavioral health and clinical roles. For-profit hospitals were less likely to prioritize data collection and social determinants than their nonprofit peers. These findings provide important insight for public health professionals regarding the staffing priorities of hospitals within their communities. Many population health programs may not be moving beyond traditional clinical expertise to engage the upstream determinants of health in their communities.

Digital Health Surveillance Strategies for Management of Coronavirus Disease 2019

“…Registries have demonstrated utility in the management of many health conditions. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] We rapidly developed, implemented, and used EHR patient registries to manage the daily operations of one of the largest multistate group practices in the United States during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The primary function of the COVID-19 registries was to equip our health system to process real-time data and to classify patients into the appropriate diagnostic category.…”

The Workforce Needed to Address Population Health

“…Recognition that health professionals of all types play a role in addressing population health and health equity is increasing. A 2015 survey of hospitals in the United States identified physicians, followed by behavioral health providers and then nursing, as the professional backgrounds and experiences that are most important to their future population health activities 28 . Recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reports on the nursing and primary care workforces noted these occupations’ roles in addressing health equity 29,30 .…”

“…A 2015 survey of hospitals in the United States identified physicians, followed by behavioral health providers and then nursing, as the professional backgrounds and experiences that are most important to their future population health activities. 28 Recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reports on the nursing and primary care workforces noted these occupations' roles in addressing health equity. 29,30 In 2016, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study laid out a framework to educate and train health professionals to address SDOH and thereby address health equity.…”

Designing systems for the care we need: A transformation journey in Southwestern Ontario

“…11 Population Health Management seeks to shift the overall health and well-being of all members of a populations through data-driven approaches to segmentation and targeted interventions co-designed with each segment. 12 , 13 Previous iterations of Ontario’s Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) (notably Local Health Integration Networks, LHINs) have been commonly criticized as lacking the financial independence and collaborative governance to be effective. 14 In 2019, when Ontario released a call for health system partners to apply to become an OHT, providers, administrators, and patient/caregiver partners from the Middlesex-London area did what many across the province did and got straight to work.…”