Measuring Opportunities To Improve Health Outcomes Via Individualized Treatment Assignment

Opportunities to improve outcomes in sickle cell disease.

Sickle cell disease represents a spectrum of inherited hemoglobin disorders. The pathophysiology involves abnormalities not just in red blood cells but also vascular endothelium, white blood cell function, coagulation, and inflammatory response. Known sequelae of sickle cell disease include invasive infections, painful episodes, acute chest syndrome, strokes, and chronic pulmonary hypertension....

Colorectal cancer screening: Opportunities to improve uptake, outcomes, and disparities

Colorectal cancer screening has become a standard of care in industrialized nations for those 50 to 75 years of age, along with selected high-risk populations. While colorectal cancer screening has been shown to reduce both the incidence and mortality of colorectal cancer, it is a complex multi-disciplinary process with a number of important steps that require optimization before tangible impro...

Transitions of Care for Stroke Patients: Opportunities to Improve Outcomes.

The last 30 years have seen tremendous progress in primary and secondary stroke prevention in the United States with better control of hypertension, decreasing smoking rates, antithrombotic treatment for atrial fibrillation, use of statins, and blood transfusions for children with sickle cell disease. 1 In 1996, intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator was approved for treatment of acute i...

Review: individualized written action plans based on peak expiratory flow improve asthma health outcomes.

Measuring Population Health Outcomes

An ideal population health outcome metric should reflect a population’s dynamic state of physical, mental, and social well-being. Positive health outcomes include being alive; functioning well mentally, physically, and socially; and having a sense of well-being. Negative outcomes include death, loss of function, and lack of well-being. In contrast to these health outcomes, diseases and injuries...