Relentless Health Value

Population health management, according to conventional wisdom, is typically an endeavor carried out with a big extensive patient encounter. Collect a whole lot of information about a patient and then attack all problems found simultaneously. This might be suboptimal. It’s fairly unlikely, if you think about it, that a patient will be able to tackle 20 identified interventions at one time. Also, it’s probably suboptimal for the patient to have multiple members of the care team—the nurse, the social worker, the health coach—all working on various interventions. Finally, what’s the point of having the patient tell you things you already know, because you have data? Today I speak with Virginia Gurley, MD, MPH, who sets us straight on all these points and more. Dr. Gurley is the senior vice president and chief medical officer at AxisPoint Health.

You can learn more at axispointhealth.com or
by emailing virginia.gurley@axispointhealth.com.

Virginia Gurley, MD, MPH, is the senior vice president and chief medical officer at AxisPoint Health, responsible for leading all clinical content development and analytics activities for the company, as well as providing strategic clinical oversight for delivery of population health management services. Dr. Gurley brings with her more than 30 years of experience in preventive medicine, clinical programs and systems design, analytics, and health education. Prior to this role, Dr. Gurley held leadership positions at managed care organizations and care management vendors, including Healthways, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, McKesson, and Henry Ford Health System. Dr. Gurley earned her MD from the University of California at Davis School of Medicine and completed her residency training at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University, where she also completed her MPH in epidemiology.

01:28 Disease management vs population health management.
02:48 What disease management would have looked like in the past.
05:12 “How do you know when you’ve succeeded?”
05:18 Information therapy.
06:19 How population health management looks different than disease management now.
07:54 “What are the barriers to the individual actually following through with that self-care behavior?”
09:32 Working on one issue at a time to increase patient receptivity.
11:42 Focusing interventions on removing barriers.
13:50 How the traditional approach arises from the culture of health care professionals.
13:58 The “fix it” mentality.
14:41 “Health and health care services are co-produced.”
16:42 The need for a level of trust.
19:55 The first step an insurance carrier or other interested party would do to switch over from a disease management model.
20:58 The critical need for a workflow tool to deploy multiple disciplinaries of care managers.
23:58 Health coaches vs care managers.
27:43 Dr. Gurley’s advice for insurance carriers and health care providers.

You can learn more at axispointhealth.com or
by emailing virginia.gurley@axispointhealth.com.