Palliative Care and Population Health Management: Key Steps on the Path to Integration (TH361)

Abstract

•Describe the current status, and predicted future, of population health in the setting of the Affordable Care Act.•Identify post-acute care strategies that effectively meet the needs of patients with serious advanced illness.•Describe approaches for enhancing care for people with complex care needs and measuring the effectiveness of these approaches. Population health management seeks to harness the efforts of health care delivery systems, public health agencies, community-based organizations, and many other entities to improve health outcomes in the communities they serve. The Affordable Care Act served as a catalyst to population health management by promoting the implementation of accountable care organizations (ACOs) to incentivize providers to take responsibility for population health outcomes. Palliative care improves value in ACOs and other integrated care delivery networks by increasing high-quality care and decreasing costs for the sickest patients. Through a combination of presentations, discussion, and individual reflective work, session attendees will develop an action plan for enhancing integration of palliative care into population health initiatives in their local settings. Session faculty will address the following topics: Population health overview:•What does population health management look like under the Affordable Care Act?•Commercial payers, Medicare ACOs, Medicare Advantage and bundled payments: how do these populations differ and what are the implications for program design?•Why should palliative care be engaged with population health management? Post-acute care strategy:•Key components of an effective post-acute care strategy•The role for palliative care in comprehensive post-acute care strategies•Complex care, panel management and measurement:•Innovative approaches for addressing the needs of patients with complex care needs•Palliative care’s role in facilitating panel management•Selecting relevant process and outcome measures Effecting change:•Identifying key partnerships•Shaping the message Time will be alloted for a structured exercise in which participants will create action plans, identifying key stakeholders in their environment and shaping a message relevant to their local situation. These action plans, with timelines, will be shared among participants for feedback from session faculty and peers.