HCM 661 - Managing Community Health

3 Credit(s)

Community and population health management, long considered the domain of public health officials, has now become a major responsibility of health care managers. Public and private payers are shifting away from volume-based reimbursement to value-based payment systems that put health care providers at risk for both the cost and quality of care they provide. Businesses are turning to population health methods to assess and monitor employee health, and manage health outcomes though a variety of worksite interventions. Health care managers have to develop the skills to (1) assess the health of their target population, (2) identify care gaps in that population, (3) risk stratify the population so that interventions are prioritized and resources are allocated by need, (4) develop effective interventions and care management structures aimed at individuals, systems and communities, and (5) implement and evaluate their programs to demonstrate their impact on health outcomes. This course provides these skills as well as tools and techniques to assess and manage the health of patient, employee, and community populations. Students develop plans to conduct health needs assessments and health risk appraisals, use theories of health behavior and models of change to design interventions targeted to appropriate individuals and groups, and apply logic models to specify implementation steps and evaluation protocols that show how and why expected health outcomes will improve.