Population Health and Optimization of the Military Health System
Abstract
The military health system (MHS) is evolving at a rapid pace as a result of a variety of extraordinary pressures that are influencing the delivery of health care today. These pressures include the shortfall in health care funding in the Program Objective Memorandum (POM) for fiscal years 2002 through 2007. In addition, the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2001 authorized an unprecedented expansion of benefits that exacerbates the funding shortfall. Lastly, the leaders of the MHS are fully aware that they have a requirement to remain accountable to Department of Defense, the line leadership and its beneficiaries. In order to be able to respond to pressures such as these, the Military Health System Optimization Team was created by the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs). The team's mission is to develop a health services delivery system within an executable funding program. The team's focus is to reengineer the military health system from one that provides interventional care once a disease process has begun, to one that focuses on health promotion and disease prevention. The end result is improved health of the MHS population. The effort to improve population health will help to reduce demand on the system, thereby opening opportunities to recapture workload that had been shifted to contractors. The shift from purchased health care to health care provided within military treatment facilities will reduce the overall cost of operating the MHS. As the concept of improving population health through the monitoring of health status becomes the focus of the military health care system, the importance of integrating and analyzing data on health status becomes critical. The rationale is that information systems that provide status on the health of the population allow for the MHS to move from interventional health care to prevention services. Individuals at high risk for adverse health outcomes can identified
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 10, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA391866
Entities
People
- Beverly A. Pritchett
Organizations
- United States Army War College