From health care to population health: Retooling legal structures for a new paradigm

Abstract

AS more Americans are burdened with chronic conditions, prominent health policy thought leaders urge a reorientation of our health care system from provision of episodic, reactive care to a "population health" focus. Some of the mechanisms proposed to achieve this would devolve certain responsibilities from physicians to other members of care teams. In particular, there is heightened interest in deploying lay health workers to reach out to the medically underserved. The Food and Drug Administration has initiated formal discussion of loosening regulatory constraints on the prescribing of medications used to treat chronic conditions. This article reviews recent efforts to transform care delivery and the regulatory barriers to realizing their full potential. It concludes that there are promising health interventions that could be implemented on a wider scale if legal barriers were lifted. It proposes a design for demonstration projects that would waive some regulatory requirements to permit testing of innovative population health models. Copyright Federation of State Medical Boards. All Rights Reserved.