Population Health Colloquium and then some!!

This past week our team from the Jefferson School of Population Health hosted the ninth annual Population Health and Disease Management Colloquium at a beautiful hotel on the river front in Philadelphia. Despite the worst winter storm of the season, and nearly eight inches of snow, we had a full house for three days of learning. What I took away from our meeting is the emerging confluence amongst wellness, prevention, disease management and care coordination. It seems to me that these concepts are fundamental to the pending reform of the health care system and the leaders who were present made a strong case for making reform happen. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) , otherwise known as the Stimulus Bill, explicitly recognizes these issues and calls for billions of dollars to be spent upgrading the public health infrastructure of the nation and creating a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Analysis. Our conference, and of course, the Jefferson School of Population Health, are part of the answer for health reform. Also this past week I was featured in a story about care coordination in the Philadelphia Inquirer and a radio interview for National Public Radio WHYY in Philadelphia. We are working tirelessly to get the message out that reform can only happen when we rationalize how care is delivered, increase the evidence basis for health care, and change the pernicious incentives as they are currently structured. I hope that our national leadership is up to this tough task. Thanks for your participation, DAVID NASH