A strategy for teaching students concepts of population-based health care for older persons.

Full Abstract

The authors present a strategy for organizing and teaching the concepts of population-based health care for patients over the age of 65. The key ingredients are a case study based on a representative sample of 5,000 Medicare recipients and a student guide containing the sample group's demographics, clinical characteristics, and utilization patterns. As part of the case study, three subgroups within the sample are described:
the basically healthy 50% that consume only 3% of medical resources, the most severely ill 10% that consume 70% of medical resources, and the moderately ill 40% that consume the remaining 27% of medical resources. These categories introduce the concepts of severity of illness, highlight the clinical challenges facing providers of care to the elderly, and contrast the divergent needs of individual health care consumers in an aging population. Armed with this succinct and manageable information packet, students are asked to play the role of an interdisciplinary team that is responsible for effectively managing the care of this population of 5,000 lives. Included in this article is a description of learning resources provided; sample group discussion questions; one strategy for caring for the population developed by a faculty-student group; and a brief description of the educational implications of the model. At the end of the article the reader is provided a Web address containing a description of the case and supporting materials (http://healthyaging.ucdavis.edu/education/continuing/ManagedMedicareTeachingCase.pdf). Readers are invited to view, print, and/or utilize the case in their own academic settings.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Xakellis, George C (GC); Robinson, Mark (M);

Affiliation: Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center for Healthy Aging, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, 95817, USA. george.xakellis(-atsign-)ucdmc.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Review

Journal: Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges (Acad Med), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Aug; vol 78 (issue 8) : pp 789-92

Dates: Created 2003/08/13; Completed 2003/09/17; Revised 2005/11/16;

PMID: 12915368, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Aged
Community Health Planning - methods
Concept Formation
Delivery of Health Care, Integrated - methods
Education, Medical - methods

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.