Two Courses on Understanding Health Systems
Analyzing Health Systems Data
Health systems use data to identify opportunities to reduce costs, improve the quality of care, and increase the efficiency of care delivery. STFM's course will help you understand how data is used in decision-making within your health system. This can lead you to advocate for business-based solutions that benefit family medicine and health care as a whole.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
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Advocating Within Your Health System
Leading change in your home institution requires you to advocate for business-based solutions that meet the needs of the health system and medical education. STFM's course will help you target messaging to decision makers in your health system. Demonstrate the need for health system change by building a business case with costs and benefits that clearly support your request.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
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Other Resources for Understanding Health Systems
The Business of Medicine
AMA Online Module: How Systems Thinking Applies to Health Care
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, you will be able to:
- Define systems thinking
- Explain the importance of systems thinking in clinical care
- Identify how a health system fits the definition of a complex system
- List the habits of systems-thinking health professionals and how they can be applied to improve clinical care
AMA Online Module: How Systems Thinking Applies to Health Care (free account required)
Supplemental Resources
- Systems Thinking in the Healthcare Professions: A Guide for Educators and Clinicians (PDF): This monograph helps faculty educate healthcare professionals as systems thinkers who will appreciate, navigate, and improve the systems within which they care for patients and populations. The monograph provides a basic understanding of the metacognitive process of systems thinking and tools for design and assessment of educational activities, courses, and curricula.
Systems and Structure
AMA Online Module: What to Know About Health Care Delivery Systems
Learning objectives
At the end of this activity, you will be able to:
- Identify the objectives, structures, processes, and outcomes of current health care systems in the United States
- Describe the ideal outcomes of health care systems
- Recognize how current health care systems are influenced by payment models and how this impacts patient care and the Triple Aim of better outcomes, improved patient experience, and lower costs and the Quadruple Aim that also works to ensure health care provider wellness and prevent burnout
- Examine how improvement strategies, population management, and data analytics can close gaps in health care systems regarding the Triple and Quadruple Aims
AMA Online Module: What to Know About Health Care Delivery Systems (free account required)
Health Systems Finance
AMA Online Module: What Are the Components of Value-Based Care?
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, you will be able to:
- Explain the concept of value and how it applies to health care
- Summarize the current state of value in US health care
- Describe the essential components of an ideal high-value health care system
- Identify the key barriers to patient-centered, high-value health care
- List strategies physicians can use to promote high-value care
AMA Online Module: What Are the Components of Value-Based Care? (free account required)
HCP Curriculum: Healthcare Costs and Payment Models PowerPoint and Facilitator's Guide
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, you will be able to:
- Explain the basics of health insurance and coverage
- Demonstrate the complexity of health care costs and the large variation in out-of-pocket costs based on insurance status
- Weigh the impact of insurance coverage and out-of-pocket costs with the ability to adhere to treatment recommendations
- Explore how provider reimbursement models can affect delivery of high value care
- Encourage physicians not to practice “one size fits all” medicine
HCP Curriculum: Healthcare Costs and Payment Models PowerPoint and Facilitator's Guide
Supplemental Resources
- Organization of the Health System in the United States: This chart from the Commonwealth Fund shows the flow of private and public funding in the US health care system.
Educating Residents and Students About Health Systems
Supplemental Resources
- Systems Thinking in the Healthcare Professions: A Guide for Educators and Clinicians (PDF): This monograph developed by the George Washington University helps faculty educate healthcare professionals as systems thinkers who will appreciate, navigate, and improve the systems within which they care for patients and populations. The monograph provides a basic understanding of the metacognitive process of systems thinking and tools for design and assessment of educational activities, courses, and curricula.
- Development of a Health Care Systems Curriculum: This paper published in Advances in Medical Education in Practice describes a UME health systems curriculum using a problem-based learning approach.
STFM Health Systems Curriculum Task Force Members
- Arch G Mainous III, PhD (Task Force Chair), University of Florida
- Margaret Baumgarten, MD, Eastern Virginia Medical School
- Jonathan Lichkus, MD, MPH, Greater Lawrence Family Health Center
- Sabrina Mitchell, DO, St Mary’s Family Medicine Residency
- Margot Savoy, MD, MPH, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
- Mary Theobald, MBA, Society of Teachers of Family Medicine
