Western Michigan University Healthcare System Essay

One of the major criticisms leveled at population health initiatives is that they purposely introduce a reduction in revenues to a health care organization – especially a hospital. If you are an executive running a business, why would you knowingly propose a strategy that cuts revenues and presumably cuts margins that fund your mission? A fair question.

Your challenge in this week’s assignment is to look at population health from a business perspective, addressing the usual questions:

• How would population health impact
  • Patient care?
  • Costs of care?
  • Providers and payers?
• What are the component pieces of population health initiatives?
• What incentives are faced/created by providers, payers and patients?
• What barriers exist to ”fixing” the problem?
• What is a business-based solution that allows population health to move forward and why is it best?

In a more focused context, consider these ideas as you answer the above questions – it is the above five items I will evaluate your response on for this assignment. The following items are just suggestions to help you think about population health from that business perspective.

• Why should a hospital executive consider a population health strategy? What’s in it for a hospital or health system?
• What is the impact on a health system’s revenues over the short term (1-2 years) and longer term (3-5 years)?
• How do you make the case to a governing board or investors that expect to see a steady upward trend in revenues and net income/surpluses? Remember, this is YOUR employment and YOUR bonus on the line here. How do you make population health a success for you as a manager and not have it become “career limiting activity”?

I’m looking for about four full double-spaced pages of work on this effort, using resources outside of the readings posted in this unit.