In conjunction with our long term collaborators Johns Hopkins Healthcare, we have devised seven ‘quick wins’ for the delivery of population health analytics that supports Population Health Management strategies.
The seventh of these quick wins is….
#7 Address variation within groups with similar degrees of morbidity burden
Rationale
- ACGs are actuarial cells in which you would expect patients to have similar expected healthcare needs and therefore utilise similar amounts of resource
- The reality is that there is often a four-fold variation of prior costs of patients within one of the ACGs
- Some of this difference may be being driven by natural variation but some of it may be being driven by the healthcare system not functioning effectively or need being affected by social determinants of health
Intervention
- Analyse patients within an ACG associated with a moderate level of complexity
- Look at the range of prior costs across patients assigned to that ACG or whether differences in cost are associated with a particular service – ED, emergency admissions etc
- Examine whether there are other non-morbidity related factors that could be associated with the observed variation (unmet need, over-provision, deprivation, patient behaviour)
- Consider how any identified issue might be addressed in those that are costing more than twice the average cost for patients within that ACG
Benefit
- Linked to schemes #2 and #3 but considers secondary care costs
- Intervention with a small number of people may result in significant costs savings
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