DorlandHealth

Notes from the 10th Annual Population Health and Disease Management Colloquium

Richard Scott

This year, the leading population health and disease management conference continues its close relationship with two other top health care summits, operating in the same location as conference on retail clinics and another on the medical home model. The 10th annual Population Health and Disease Management Colloquium, sponsored by Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College, runs through Tuesday, March 2, and its shared quarters speak to growing trends in care delivery and adherence.

Taking place among the backdrop of the national debate on health care reform, the population health conference assessed the climate of many top reform points of address, such as chronic disease, preventive medicine, wellness, health promotion and comparative effectiveness research, among a panoply of other targeted areas. Monday’s morning sessions focused largely on that term close to case managers and related medical management professionals: care coordination.

Dr. Richard Wender, chair of Jefferson’s Department of Family Medicine, opened the sessions with a keynote address touching on the well-known burden of chronic disease in our country. “Our nation’s health is unconscionably poor,” he said.