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The Promise of Population Health Management Programs
Mathematica Issue Brief Examines Current Evidence and Future Potential
Contact: Amy Berridge, (609) 945-3378
WASHINGTON, DC—August 17, 2011—In the arsenal of tools to improve health care quality and cut costs in the United States, population health management (PHM) programs—those targeted to a defined population and using a variety of individual, organizational, and societal interventions—are increasingly being viewed by large employers as a promising practice for improving health outcomes and "bending" the cost curve.
A new issue brief from Mathematica Policy Research, "Exploring the Promise of Population Health Management Programs to Improve Health," helps clarify the role of these programs as the nation focuses on improving health outcomes, increasing the quality of health care, and reducing per capita health care costs. Mathematica's brief looks at the state of PHM programs, examines their features, and discusses evidence of their effectiveness.
"PHM programs present an opportunity to learn whether truly comprehensive programs can improve health and reduce costs where efforts of a more-limited scope have failed," said Suzanne Felt-Lisk, senior health researcher and lead author of the issue brief. "More-rigorous monitoring and measurement of these programs as a whole can provide the evidence we need to determine if they can help us reach our national goals."