Geisinger Health System CEO launches population health initiative

Geisinger Health System CEO Dr. David Feinberg used the StartUp Health Festival to launch its population health initiative, Springboard Health during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco this week.

Starting with Springboard Healthy Scranton, the program will work with Scranton, Pennsylvania residents on helping them to manage diabetes, obesity and behavioral health needs. It will also help individuals gain access to healthy food by leveraging food banks.

The program launch was part of a wider panel discussion on building innovation hubs with the panelists reaching a similar conclusion — that hospitals and health systems need to work with their communities to transform themselves or risk being disrupted in ways they can’t control.

In an interview with MedCity News, when asked what Feinberg has learned from hospital public health initiatives, for better or worse, Feinberg said he wanted to avoid the kind of piecemeal initiatives that Geisinger, admittedly, has done as well.

“A lot of times health systems do a community needs assessment because it’s a requirement and when it comes back, obesity is an issue, transportation is an issue, access to care is an issue, mental health is an issue. But then, no one does anything with that data but put it on the shelf until you do the report the next year. Then they’ll have a health fair, do some health screenings and we are guilty of all that too. So it is sort of piecemeal, not consistent and never really brings everybody into the community together and says, ‘We will do this together’.”

Feinberg noted that Springboard Healthy Scranton would include elements such as a fresh food pharmacy — an initiative that “prescribes” a food program for diabetic, food-insecure patients. The initiative will also pull together data, genomics, and double down on community involvement in an interesting combination of population health and personalized medicine.

Geisinger will do DNA sequencing for Scranton area program participants so they can receive information about serious genetic conditions they may be at risk for yet unaware of. The idea is to do early testing and get a diagnosis earlier to improve the long-term outlook for those individuals.

“It is about how we can engage with our community and benefit from our community,” Feinberg said.