Population Health Management - What's in the name? International vision sharing and lessons learned.
Authors: Verheust Hanne , Wallyn Solvejg , Debrabandere Dietlinde 
Published: January 2024

Population Health Management (PHM) has different possible interpretations and elaborations depending on the lens through which it is viewed. A general definition is that PHM is a process to improve health outcomes in a specific group or an individual through improved care coordination and patient engagement supported by appropriate financial and organizational models. But how can policymakers, organizations and individual healthcare providers structurally get to work with PHM ?

Population health management can be an equity tool to operationalize health goals and interventions. Through the vast amount of data, the population and its various subgroups can be identified and mapped. This can be complemented by analyses of setting and context, often mapped locally. This way, targeted actions can be set up based on a holistic risk profile or subgroup. Behavioral and cultural insights into the broad population and subgroups is an important aspect, as how people deal with health may require completely different approaches. Additionally, the current fragmentation in the Belgian healthcare system of policy and organizational structures makes multidisciplinary collaboration difficult, if we aim for a tailor-made care for citizens. What is the ideal level for each responsibility of population health management?

During covid-19 there was a concrete objective: to offer a vaccine to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. For this purpose an outreach approach was set up in Flanders via population managers within a defined area. Using environmental analysis and data, targeted, tailor-made actions were set up to offer vaccines. All local partners were mobilized, yielding excellent results with regard to vaccination coverage. But, how can this be made sustainable and applied to other incentives?

In this workshop, we would like to present possible interpretations around PHM to the international audience. Within the Flanders Agency for Care and Health, we are working towards a supported vision of PHM. Hence, we are eager to learn from the international audience and their approaches and experiences in PHM at micro, meso and macro level.

Anyone who is in any way concerned with population health management or curious about the topic is welcome to attend this workshop, as we aim for an open dialogue with many perspectives from a diverse group. PHM is a very technical and complex term. What we would like to see is how we can make it work and keep it operable in a very practical – down-to-earth way.

Timetable: 20 minutes introduction different visions : data, organizational structures and individual healthcare provider approaches. 25 minutes subdivision into groups discussing about the different topics round PHM (data, organization, financial, local) at micro, meso and macro level about visions, implementing barriers and key lessons learned. 10 minutes feedback and 5 minutes of key messages.

After each exchange there will be feedback to the whole group. At the end the most important key messages will be shared with the group. The knowledge and insights gained will be used as input for a vision paper of the Agency on PHM.