Approaching health from a population perspective should be preceded by understanding all factors that affect health. Thus, the number of strategies that can be utilized to enhance population health outcomes is large. One evidence-based strategy for leading efforts to attain optimal health for populations on a national scale is the use of predictive analytics. Benefits associated with predictive analytics in healthcare include the improvement of operational efficiency, the possibility of predicting future outcomes based on patterns in the historical data, and accuracy of diagnosis and treatment in personalized care.
It has been shown that predictive models for patient risk have the potential to improve cardiovascular quality of care (Rumsfeld, Joynt, & Maddox, 2016). Besides, potential risk signals related to newly marketed therapies can be identified using algorithms of predictive analytics (Ehrenstein, Nielsen, Pedersen, Johnsen, & Pedersen, 2017). The DNP practice scholar can play a significant role in improving population health by using methods of predictive analytics to forecast patient and population outcomes.
Despite the fact that many healthcare reforms are adopted to enhance the quality of healthcare, quite a few of them manage to make a palpable impact. This highlights the need for considering strategies to support reform efforts. One of such strategies is fostering a healthy workforce environment where everyone is treated with respect. Both within and across healthcare systems, job satisfaction of healthcare providers has been found to correlate with the success of healthcare reforms (Manyazewal, Oosthuizen, & Matlakala, 2016).
The major causes of failure of a number of population health reforms were lack of moral satisfaction and job stability, continuing education, appropriate salary and benefits. Therefore, in order to successfully lead population health reform efforts, the DNP practice scholar should clarify healthcare workers’ roles within interprofessional teams and ensure that job descriptions are clear to everyone. It is also important that the DNP practice scholar make sure that skilled staff is appropriately and effectively utilized, and a safe working environment is promoted.
Healthy People 2020 is the government’s program that has been developed to improve the health of the US nation. Disease-prevention goals presented in this agenda have been established by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
The Healthy People 2020 initiative outlines a set of goals and objectives aimed at removing health disparities and enhancing population health. All the goals and objectives belong to forty-two topic areas, including adolescent health, blood disorders and blood safety, disability and health, diabetes, environmental health, food safety, healthcare-associated infections, heart disease and stroke, HIV, injury and violence prevention, nutrition, oral health, physical activity, sleep health, substance abuse, tobacco use, and vision. The number of objectives corresponding to Healthy People 2020 goals is equal to sixty hundred (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2019). The program emphasizes the concept of social determinants of health, which means that health is impacted by social factors.
The DNP practice scholar can help advance outcomes of Healthy People 2020 by identifying health improvement priorities in the local healthcare setting and promoting public awareness of ongoing health problems and interventions to address them. It is important that the DNP practice scholar focus his or her professional activity on the program’s objectives and suggested evidence-based information and recommendations that are presented on the program’s website. For example, the DNP practice scholar can consider recommended infection control strategies to reduce the spread of MRSA in his or her practice setting.
References
Ehrenstein, V., Nielsen, H., Pedersen, A. B., Johnsen, S. P., & Pedersen, L. (2017). Clinical epidemiology in the era of big data: New opportunities, familiar challenges. Clinical Epidemiology, 9(2), 245–250.
Manyazewal, T., Oosthuizen, M. J., & Matlakala, M. C. (2016). Proposing evidence-based strategies to strengthen implementation of healthcare reform in resource-limited settings: A summative analysis. BMJ Open, 6(9), e012582.
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (2019). 2020 topics and objectives. Web.
Rumsfeld, J. S., Joynt, K. E., & Maddox, T. M. (2016). Big data analytics to improve cardiovascular care: Promise and challenges. Nature Reviews Cardiology, 13(6), 350–359.