The overall concept of population health and the specific strategies of population health management have come into vogue for health care delivery systems and ACOs. As part of the Triple Aim developed by the Institute for Health Improvement, the aim for “improving the health of populations” has been embraced by ACOs and health systems in their health care services for their patient and enrollee populations.Population health management is focused on health care delivery, utilization and outcomes, taking into account the roles of primary care providers and engaged patients. In addition, population health management activities need to be implemented as a part an overall framework of population health in its use of analytics, stratification and care management activities in a defined group of individual patients. These activities result in the highest risk patients receiving targeted services from a comprehensive care team, while lower risk patients receive physician services augmented by self-management support.

Why relationship-centered care is central to population health management

As we move from individuals to populations, we need to strengthen provider relationships not only with patients, but also with other doctors and the extended care team, including those who sit outside of their clinic walls including doctors, specialists, clinics and hospitals. In terms of working with patients, there will be much greater emphasis on the medical home and the broader paradigm of patient-centered care. Patient-centered medical homes build upon the idea that the patient׳s relationship to his or her providers in the medical home is critical to high quality care.3 As a result, the component of relationship-based care dealing with the physician׳s relationship to the patient is a perfect fit with the paradigm of patient-centered care

Conclusion

The unique proposition of this paper is that relationship-centered care is a critical patient care paradigm for improving population health. As a major component of the Triple Aim and improving value, population health management needs to be a central focus for practice transformation in health care. There are some early lessons how relationship-centered care can be effectively implemented.

An important innovation in the past two decades has been the development of the framework of patient-centered care, which is now a component of the Triple Aim. As has been described, relationship-centered care and patient-centered care are fully compatible and synergistic with each other. As we move toward value-based care, the combination of relationship-centered care and patient-centered care should be considered foundational to healthcare delivery innovation, especially when these kinds of innovations are closely tied to population health management.