This interesting article appeared last week:
Karen DeSalvo lays out vision for 'Public Health 3.0,' focuses on social determinants of health
The former national coordinator says addressing social determinants is critical to the success of value-based care and that big infrastructure investment will enable localized approaches to public health.
By Mike Miliard
August 23, 2017 02:11 PM
Improving social determinants of health is a must-do for value-based care models that seek to improve and maintain health instead of treating illness, said former National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo, MD.
Writing in Health Affairs, along with Jeffrey Levi, professor of health management & policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University, DeSalvo raised the alarm that "for the first time in generations, life expectancy has plateaued and is declining."
That's largely due to socioeconomic, racial, geographic and behavioral factors that aren't being adequately addressed by the U.S. healthcare system.
Doing so requires connecting the care delivery system with services and organizations in the community that can address social factors and create healthy conditions in the community.
That's a hugely complex challenge, and one that will require a broad effort from many different stakeholders, said DeSalvo and Levi. "But the sad truth is, the public health infrastructure is struggling to step up to serve as that bridge. Like other parts of our nation’s infrastructure, it has been chronically underfunded."
The article calls for a "Public Health 3.0 Environment," marked by "shared responsibility from all levels of government and civil society" and big investments from federal, state and local agencies, as well as private organizations, in public health efforts beyond the healthcare delivery system.
"Cross-sectoral collaboration is inherent to the Public Health 3.0 vision, with health departments serving as the Chief Health Strategist for their communities. Health departments in this role must be high-achieving health organizations with the skills and capabilities to drive such collective action."
More here:
Really an interesting perspective being put here – that warrants further exploration to see how the ideas can be progressed.
David.
1 comment:
Well, we're a long way ahead of them, and at least of the plateau is that we've managed to delay morbidity due to heart disease and cancer, but we're getting into the margins now. Still (or because of that) it's more imperative than ever that we heed her call (even if the yanks get trumped instead).
It raises a question though: what does the right public health information structure look like? MyHR isn't it... let's assume that the technical execution gets sorted (hah!), what should the national system look like, and how should it be governed to create confidence and support this kind of stuff? This blog seems to be one the few places where many people can say what they actually think in public... so what would it look like?
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