Health care has always focused primarily on the health of the individual. That focus, however, is shifting toward a new paradigm that encompasses population health, as well. On a federal level, individual health care has greatly shifted toward an emphasis on rural health care, and on a state level, meaningful use and state initiatives have also begun to stress the importance of overall population health – both shifts resulting in positive consequences for health care.
Part of the shift toward public health is evidenced by the sheer amount of funding that rural care receives. On August 11, 2016, a total of $16 million was allocated by the federal government’s Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to specific communities in rural areas (HHS). The grant money was given to boost the budgets of four specific rural health care programs, such as Rural Health Research Centers, Small Health Care Provider Quality Improvement, Telehealth Network Grant Program, and Flex Rural Veterans Health Access Programs (HHS). Such block grants hold immense promise for underserved populations who live in remote areas with little access to public health care.
In addition, the states themselves are following suit, as they are now customizing certain aspects of health care to streamline both access and delivery of services, as well as a better analysis of large amounts of population health data. For example, in the area of Meaningful Use, states billing Medicare are now permitted to customize their information technology in order to deliver more specific population health information, including compiling patient lists by condition, processing information form Immunization Registries, giving information regarding lab data to agencies of public health, as well as the capability for the submission of electronic health data to public agencies which relates to the surveillance of certain syndromes (HIMSS). Thus, such IT advances make the collection of large databases streamlined, and trends in population health become easier to detect.
Finally, the overall consequences of the shift toward population health translates into better, more targeted care for every American. Moreover, such a shift allows the collection and centralization of huge pools of health care data which can be analyzed with greater precision, due to IT advances. Moreover, by allocating monies to specific populations, accountability of health care for the demographic can be improved, as progress is measured for population health, and information is more meaningful in the context of an entire population, as opposed to an individual model of health care.
References
HHS. (11 Aug. 2016). HRSA, Health and human services, federal office of rural health policy.
Retrieved 07 Sep. 2016 from http://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2016/08/11/16-
million-funding-improve-health-care-rural-america.html
HIMSS. Meaningful use and state initiatives. Retrieved 07 Sep. 2016 from
http://www.himss.org/meaningful-use-state-initiatives
