The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged correctional health agencies to develop new approaches to managing patient populations. To effectively manage population health, organizations must balance keeping people in their institutions healthy and caring for patients infected with the illness. The concept behind population health management as it pertains to COVID-19 is simple: Identify patients with this illness or those that are at higher risk of being infected due to existing chronic health problems, and provide early interventions to keep them healthier.
COVID-19 has presented challenges across the healthcare community and has had an unprecedented effect on the delivery of correctional healthcare, which has highlighted the need to accelerate some of the population health work being done. For example, having physicians on an integrated electronic health record (EHR) facilitates the collection of data on a single platform and greatly improves the chances of mitigating the spread of the virus throughout the facility. Having access to a comprehensive EHR solution provides users with COVID-19 specific health screening documentation and informational handouts to provide the patients. In addition, the data captured within the EHR allows users to generate robust reports that can identify those who have the disease, have had the disease, or even those that have been in contact with someone who has/has had the disease. Having this type of data readily available will avert more costly health problems, and even fatalities, down the road.
Now more than ever, technology is a key driver used to manage population health. Implementing healthcare best practices and evidence-based methods of suppression for an infectious disease such as COVID-19, especially with the use of a fully integrated EHR solution, can make a drastic impact on the quality of care provided within your organization.