HIMSS Analytics Releases Population Health Study

CHICAGO (February 29, 2016)—Population Health, one of the hottest topics in health care in the last year, is becoming a focus of health care delivery organizations as the emphasis of health care delivery changes from volume- to value-based care.

In December 2015, HIMSS Analytics released their Population Health Essentials Brief, offering insight from nearly 200 health care executives (C-Suite, administrators, directors and VPs) on their population health initiatives as well as their current and future plans for population health IT solutions.

HIMSS Analytics has now released an addendum to the study that focuses on chronic disease management and preventive health and wellness, allowing for even deeper insight into the current practices of population health initiatives in health care.

“HIMSS Analytics wanted to gain additional insight and provide more details into what organizations are actually doing around population health,” said Brendan FitzGerald, director of research at HIMSS Analytics. “Building upon our 2015 Population Health Study, we have narrowed our focus to specific categories within population health to highlight areas of focus, tangible benefits realized, contributing factors to achieving population health goals and the biggest hurdles to success.”

Other highlights include:

• Roughly 11 percent of study respondents with initiatives in place currently use a consultant for their population health strategy.
• More than half of study respondents without current population health initiatives in place plan to employ initiatives in the future.
• Just more than one-third of organizations with plans to employ population health initiatives in the future plan to use a consultant or would consider it.
• According to the HA Population Health Study follow-up, the leading areas of focus for organizations with chronic disease management initiatives in place are diabetes (75.9 percent), congestive heart failure (58.6 percent) and COPD (41.4 percent)

Roughly 70 percent of respondents to the HA Population Health Study follow-up with preventive health/wellness initiatives in place focus on workplace health promotion.

Find the full study and more information here.