Population Health Curriculum

Date of Review: October, 2018

The Robert Graham Center, with funding from HRSA and in collaboration with the American Board of Family Medicine has developed a curriculum in population health with a strong emphasis on use of geocoding to improve care of individuals and populations, intended for trainees in Family Medicine and nurse practitioner programs. The resource includes five components. An initial slide deck introduces key components of population health, including hotspotting and a framework for integrating population health into primary care. A subsequent presentation focuses on very specific tools and techniques needed for geocoding patient information. Three exercises are then provided to encourage trainees to use the free online UDS data mapper and fictitious patient data to determine how specific health risks cluster geographically and how patients might be referred to resources based on geographic distribution. The curriculum is informed by milestones required for trainees in FM and NP programs that were determined by an expert panel convened by the Graham Center. The slide presentations have extensive, excellent notes that would allow someone without much pre-existing knowledge to present this topic to trainees. The exercises allow immediate knowledge application so trainees can see the relevance of the learning modules. The second slide presentation is quite detailed regarding options for geographic classification; individual trainees who don’t plan a career in population health may find this a little too far-removed from direct clinical care for their interests, but they may stop at the first module, which has essential information for any provider. —Heather Heiman, MD, NCEAS

Corresponding Author’s Email:

jrankin@aafp.org

Institution:

The Robert Graham Center

Source of the Curriculum/Resource

Online

Clinical Specialty:

Family and Community Medicine

Outcomes that Have Been Reported for the Curriculum:

Learner satisfaction or reaction and self reported learner knowledge