At the HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Pop Health Forum in Chicago this week, clinicians, data scientists, technology professionals and other innovators gathered to compare notes and share best practices for getting to the goal we're all after: high-quality, efficient, accessible care for healthier patient populations.

As providers, payers and policymakers attack this challenge from different angles, it's clearer than ever that pop health is a complex, multi-faceted project that requires boundary-pushing approaches on many varied fronts.

From quality improvement to patient engagement, data governance to care coordination, the building blocks to effective population health management depend on the commitment and vision of an array of healthcare professionals: CEOs, CFOs, Chief Data Officers, Chief Patient Experience Officers, Chief Clinical Transformation Officers and beyond. Those folks known as doctors and nurses are pretty important too.

 Pop Health Forum 2016: What speakers said and panelists debated at the event

Population Health encompasses risk models and cost reduction, data-enabled resource allocation for accountable care; behavior change; chronic care management; utilization reduction; EHR optimization; telemedicine and more.

The breadth of those value-based healthcare needs – each tough to accomplish on its own, each with its own set of people-, process- or technology-based challenges – speaks to the enormous task of population health management.

The government has done well in steering the healthcare industry, with both carrot and stick, toward these huge imperatives. But federal guidance only goes so far. Pop health and accountable care demands teamwork – whether it's between physician and patient, government and health system or CIO and CMIO.

"Population health management requires fundamentally rethinking processes engrained within organizations and legacy processes from the fee-for-service world," wrote Healthcare IT News Managing Editor Bill Siwicki recently. "And it requires healthcare executives to embrace new strategies, technologies and mindsets."

That, of course, is easier said than done. But it must be done.

Those toiling in the pop health trenches would do well to understand the basics of clinical care, data analytics, patient engagement and payment reform and revenue cycle optimization – regardless of whether or not they're their specific job duties. They should familiarize themselves with the daily to-do lists of their health system colleagues.

"The big challenge surrounding population health is understanding how to plan care needed for more complex patients while at the same time building systems of care for these patients and analyzing how that care gets paid for," Madeleine Biondolillo, MD, vice president of population health management at the Connecticut Hospital Association, told Siwicki.

She added: "This has to be a community team effort."

But while pop health is far and away a human-centered endeavor, technology has a huge enabling role to play. And that too can be a challenge.

We know that IT decision-makers want to make the right purchasing decisions as their employers push forward into the new world of accountable care, and hope this guide will help inform them about their options. There are many of them, most promising to help health systems manage their patients across the care continuum, delivering data from an array of sources where it's needed with quickness and ease.

Again, that's easier said than done. But now that all facets of this sprawling industry are focused on the same goal, the hope is that a concerted effort from myriad directions can help make it happen. 

Helpful advice for planning to purchase a population health platform:

⇒ Experts explain what to look for when choosing a population health platform
⇒ Comparison chart of 8 population health products 
⇒ An in-depth look at 8 population health software programs

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