A report in the April issue of The American Journal of Managed Care points to three groups of conditions that impact health scores the most. The research may provide a baseline for health plans to be more proactive in helping its members improve their health.
The authors of the study “The Health and Well-being of an ACO Population,” are from HealthPartners, a Minnesota-based, consumer-governed, integrated healthcare organization, which was unable to identify a set of measurements that would provide them opportunities to improve its population health performance. So, they created their own measure of health and well-being from three scores: a current health score, a future health score, and a well-being score.
An AJMC news release notes that musculoskeletal, psychosocial, and neurologic conditions were identified as having the greatest impact on a patient’s current health and that making dietary improvements offered the best opportunity to getting the, on the road to better future health.
The researchers calculated the current health score from insurance claims and death records for 754,584 members 18 years and older; it is the complement of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) and is composed of the disease burden due to mortality before age 75 years and morbidity. A cross-sectional analysis of insurance claims, death records, and survey data helped create the summary measure (noting that relying on available data would not have provided the information they gathered).
Members were asked about their future health and well-being with the score encompassing two parts: one based on six member-reported behaviors, and the other an age- and sex-specific preventive services score based on the performance of the medical group to which the health plan attributes the member.
The well-being score was based on one validated question: “How satisfied are you with your life?”
The results showed 42 percent of those surveyed reported a high level of well-being with 14 percent stating low levels of well-being. Researchers said members covered by Medicaid (which was used as a proxy for income) or had low levels of education felt the lowest levels of well-being.
A total of 44 percent of the loss to the current health score was due to lower back pain and cervical spine pain; anxiety and depression; and headache, migraine, and head injury, respectively.
Using the findings to improve future health could have huge impacts as the researchers calculated that a 1-point increase in the mean future health score could be associated with a 5.6 percent reduction in DALYs. The HealthPartners’ measures could help guide national efforts to improve population health and well-being and invites other providers to test the validity and reliability of its methodology.
