NPR recently published this in-depth article about the challenges of healthcare for Baltimore’s lower income residents. After reading it, it’s hard for me not to think of The Wire, the HBO series that received acclaim for its authentic portrayal of Baltimore’s deep rooted social challenges. I think healthcare is another issue that David Simon, the show’s creator, could have explored as the core premise of the series is the interconnected nature of the city’s struggles - poverty, crime, policing, race relations, politics and the education system. There is a quote from a character on the show that has become emblematic of this theme that also applies to how healthcare has been recently shifting to population health:
“All the pieces matter.” — Detective Lester Freamon to Detective Roland Pryzbylewski, The Wire
Dr. Marcia Cort, chief medical officer of the non-profit Total Health Care, states in the article that “Baltimore City is in a health crisis.” The life expectancy of residents in the impoverished Sandtown neighborhood is 69.7 years old, which is the same as in poverty-stricken North Korea. Also according to the article, “residents of the ZIP code including Sandtown accounted for the city’s second-highest per-capita rate of diabetes-related hospital cases in 2011, the second-highest rate of psychiatric cases, the sixth-highest rate of heart and circulatory cases and the second-highest rate of injury and poisoning cases. Asthma, HIV infection and drug use are common.”[1]
Over the years, some residents have developed a mistrust of healthcare due to challenges in access and because of negative outcomes experienced resulting from a lack of coordinated and preventive care. A Baltimore resident, Robert Peace, described how he developed a recurring bone infection after undergoing a surgical procedure. Likely due to receiving minimal follow-up care, the infection grew worse, became extremely painful and resulted in five additional surgeries being required in 18 months. Today, Robert has permanently impaired mobility.
Dr. Jay Perman, pediatric gastroenterologist and president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore stated in the article that clinicians have to accept responsibility for patients outside the walls of the hospital. “As a profession, as an industry, we have not sufficiently appreciated, let alone done something about, the impact of social determinants. Guys like me and gals like me can easily say, ‘I made the correct diagnosis. I wrote a proper prescription. I’m done.’ What I say to my students is, if you think you’re done — if ‘done’ means the patient is going to get better — you’re fooling yourself.” To the credit of health systems in the area, they acknowledge that there have been shortcomings in how care was delivered and are implementing improvements. These efforts include a new focus on preventing readmissions, new investment in care coordinators, primary care and post-discharge management.
Although the social challenges Baltimore faces have been ingrained for many years, healthcare is the one for which there may be the clearest path to lasting improvement – via population health. Population health as an approach recognizes that health systems must care for patients outside the walls of the hospital using a multi-disciplinary team. An expanded care team can include friends, family members and social organizations (e.g. assistance with transportation, meals, paying for prescriptions, etc.). It can involve multiple health systems collaborating in the care of patients even though the health systems are in reality competitors. It also recognizes the need for innovation in technology such as a longitudinal patient record shared across all providers, analytics, and workflow tools that can help care teams manage a high volume of patients efficiently.
I would theorize that more than any other factor, it was the shortcomings of the fee-for-service model that contributed the most to the poor outcomes experienced by Sandtown residents. Population health offers a real strategy for change. More than cost efficiency, which is often the most commonly mentioned driver of population health, improved outcomes is the most compelling reason for population health. I am hopeful that health systems like those in Baltimore will continue to invest more and scale their population health initiatives with a sense of urgency. If they can successfully transform to become more patient-centric and improve the health of the people they serve, they will be able to rebuild the trust of the community. That accomplishment would be truly worthy of a television series.
[1] Hancock, Jay. In Freddie Gray’s Baltimore, The Best Medical Care Is Nearby But Elusive. NPR.org, 2.15.16. originally published at http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/02/15/466550095/in-freddie-grays-baltimore-the-best-medical-care-is-nearby-but-elusive