Institute of Medicine

The idea of keeping entire communities healthy is often termed population health.

Increasingly, New York—along with the rest of the nation—recognizes that an affordable health system needs to place greater emphasis on keeping people healthy so there is less need for expensive health care services. As NYHealth moves forward in diabetes prevention, the Foundation will focus more on prevention and efforts to improve population health, with an aim to advance initiatives and policies that keep people from developing this chronic condition. Thus far, health care providers have found it difficult to identify concrete interventions that accomplish the goal of improving population health. With funding from NYHealth, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) will convene a roundtable featuring experts from multiple sectors to develop ideas for concrete interventions that keep people healthy and reduce the need for expensive medical care.

The IOM will convene an initial meeting with roundtable members, including NYHealth, to develop an annual agenda, identify topics of interest to pursue through workshops, and select themes for discussion papers and commentaries. Roundtable members will lead at least six workshops focused on concrete actions to accelerate community and state improvements in population health and inform changes in policy to support these improvements. Members of the roundtable will also co-author at least four discussion papers with recommendations to move forward, workshop proceedings, and summary briefs that highlight best practices, scientific evidence, and innovative ideas that will improve population health. With this project, NYHealth has an opportunity to be among the leading organizations working on this issue nationally.