TransforMEDx recognizes Population Health to be a shared health management approach focused on improving the health of an entire population, while reducing health inequities among groups within the population.
Health is a societal resource. Improving Population Health compels investment in that resource outside of our traditional health care delivery system, investment emphasizing quality of life factors complementary to traditional clinical approaches to treat existing ailments.
There is an inherent social and economic value proposition to any investment improving Population Health. As a society, our mental and social well-being improves, participation in the economy expands, productivity increases and societal health care costs decrease. Benefits accrue to everyone.
It is generally accepted that population health outcomes are the product of multiple social determinants of health. These determinants are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. They include:
- Economic stability
- Education
- Social and Community Context
- Health and Health Care
- Neighborhood and Built Environment (Public services and infrastructure)
The conditions in which we live explain in part why some Americans are healthier than others and, more generally, why Americans are not as healthy as they could be. The best and most effective way to impact population health is to address health determinants.
As portrayed in the image below from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings, the effort to improve population health outcomes will require “…a collaborative strategy between leaders in healthcare, politics, charity, education, and business.”
With a strong collaborative effort, all of us as Population Health stakeholders can positively impact the health determinants identified above, allowing everyone the opportunity to improve their situation, providing for fuller and healthier lives and generally higher social-economic status.
TransforMEDx focuses on helping non- and for-profit organizations take actionable steps to negate the complex causes and consequences of the negative social determinants in the communities within which they operate and from where they draw their workforce. We work with clients to identify and implement alternatives to the status quo.