As clinical providers seek ways to improve the health of their patients at the population level, one great resource that they should tap is their county health department. There are many resources and skills that health departments will share with physicians and other providers that will improve their ability to improve the health of their patients.In my work I have had numerous occasions to collaborate with the chief epidemiologist of the Kent County Health Department of Michigan-Mr. Brian Hartl. Through these contacts and through an introductory epidemiology course I have found that health departments are experts at providing population level health services. This is in contrast to most clinical providers who excel at working with their patients on a face-to-face level. Both staff of physician offices and staff of health departments are concerned with the health of individuals and groups of people.Clinicians most often work with individuals during face-to-face encounters. They treat the disease or injury of an individual one at a time. For instance, if a physician is treating a patient with hypertension, she will plan a course of treatment with the individual in mind. If the physician considers the population level in her work, then she is looking at how the treatments and instructions that she provides affect a group of her patients. For instance, she may consider how effective she is in treating her patients with hypertension collectively.The patients of a county health department are the population of the county. Only in a few instances do health departments treat individuals one at a time. Much of their work would not be considered clinical interventions. However, their work does affect the population as a whole. For instance, health departments are responsible for seeing that food at restaurants is handled and cooked correctly. Health departments track reports of communicable disease to identify potential clusters or outbreaks, such as measles, in order to mobilize the community and physician groups to respond and prevent further transmission.Can these two health groups benefit each other in improving the health of their patients and, if so, how? I recently interviewed Brian Hartl about this and he shared some thoughts that I believe can help clinical providers do a better job. As an expert in population level health, Mr. Hartl sees much of his work as preventive in nature. In the emerging world of population level medicine it is important for physicians and other clinical staff to focus on prevention too-prevention of chronic diseases worsening for patients, such as prevention of patients diagnosed with prediabetes advancing to diabetes, and prevention of teen patients from misusing alcohol and other drugs, including tobacco. The Kent County Health Department has many resources that can help physicians achieve their goal and would be very willing to collaborate with clinical groups. In fact, KCHD currently has a grant whose funds can be used to improve patient opportunities for chronic disease prevention, risk reduction or management through clinical and community linkages.Mr. Hartl believes there is potential to work together with physicians to establish a system for prescribing healthy living activities and lifestyles as non-clinical interventions for the prevention/management of chronic disease. For instance, the Kent County Health Department is actively engaged in helping communities develop walking paths in underserved areas in the City of Grand Rapids. He thinks that patients with chronic diseases can greatly benefit if they became more active by walking. He is willing to share maps and information about the location of such paths so that a physician can prescribe a walking agenda for a patient and then point them to nearby paths that they can easily access.The Kent County Health Department is also engaged in working with community partners to bring fresh foods to locations in the county where access to fresh fruits and vegetables is difficult. These are known as ‘food deserts’ and often only have retail food stores that are ‘quick markets’ that have only boxed food, such as those found in many gasoline stations. His group is working with such retailers in the community to overcome the barriers to providing fresh foods. Mr. Hartl is willing to share with physician groups the locations of fresh food sources in the community so that clinicians can inform their patients of the locations and improve their food lifestyles.These are just two examples of information that the health department is willing to share with clinical groups so that their patients can achieve healthy, active lifestyles. Besides information, health departments also have community contacts that could be useful. For instance, the Kent County Health Department works with the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids, which has a nationally recognized program (the Diabetes Prevention Program) that helps prevent individuals diagnosed with prediabetes from becoming diabetic. The health department also has links with community educators, the Grand Rapids Urban League and prevention groups that focus on the prevention of the misuse of alcohol and other drugs.As you can see there are many resources that are available from health departments. Will it be beneficial to clinical providers to access these resources? I believe that accessing these resources will help physicians and other clinical providers greatly improve the quality of life of their patients. Also, it will help in improving the outcomes of patients at the population level. This is very important for groups that have risk-based contracts with private payers and for those who serve patients who are covered by Medicare. According to an article in Modern Healthcare dated January 16, 2015, about 40% of all private payer contracts are incentive based now; those with such contracts need to focus on population level health.There is a treasure of information at the health department for patient-centered medical homes that have patient care coordinators. One of the responsibilities of these coordinators is inform their patients of community resources that would be useful to them. The health department is an excellent source of such information.The goals of healthcare providers remains to provide safe and high quality care to their patients while their management staff work to improve the bottom line. With the rise of risk based contracts that dictate managing care at the population level, I believe that county health departments can do a great deal to help providers meet their goals.

Climbing the success ladder and standing atop the management hierarchy is every professional’s dream. If you are too a working professional, don’t you aspire to be one among the senior management one day? Don’t you want to be on the other side of the table – commanding, leading from the top, and setting an example for many to follow? It’s not easy definitely; getting there requires immaculate efforts, and of course, the requisite skills.One among such most vital skills is marketing. Does not sound very common when it comes to senior management roles, right? But yes, it’s a skill that’s highly valued by employers today across organisations. It is, in fact, one of the pivotal competencies of a strong senior manager. We, at Times TSW, will help you explore why and how marketing skills form an inevitable trait for senior management roles, in this article below.Marketing Skills Form the Core of the Senior Management’s ResponsibilitiesIf you thought that marketing is a task restricted to the creative marketing department of your organisation, it’s time to rethink. Competition in the corporate world has brought marketing competencies right to the lap of every employee therein. And, once you start working on augmenting them, you’d soon start treading the path of success.This is because managers must know how to promote their specific product/idea in the market amid cut-throat competition. For this, they need to polish some of the basic marketing competencies such as:Effective communication
Communication is the lifeblood of a team lead/manager. That’s common knowledge. But it shouldn’t just be restricted to interpersonal or in-house communication. Marketing is a type of professional communication that happens between organisations (B2B), as well as with potential and existing customers (B2C). If you exactly know how to market your service idea outside the four walls of your enterprise, you’d be doing immense good to the latter as well as to yourself.Out-of-the-box approaches
What’s the most impactful quality of a senior manager? Their ability to think out of the box for the most trivial or critical issues at hand; to offer creative solutions when needed. Marketing skills require you to develop analytical thinking towards project goals and requirements and present innovative ways to achieve them, both to your team as well as your customers.Keeping pace with technology
Technological changes have seeped into every phase of work functions today. You may be part of any domain in your organisation, be it IT, marketing, finance, HR, or any other, you do need to adapt yourself to fast-paced changes all along so as to surpass the competition.Moreover, you need to keep an eye open for cues all along. For instance, keep a check if the traditional means of advertising the project idea are failing to attain desired results? See if digital marketing is the new trend in the market that can put across your message more effectively? Figure out and work on your marketing strategies in accordance with changing technologies.Efficient collaboration
Marketing competencies also involve effective coordination with other departments of the organisation as you work on your product. This may require you to sit with the design team to prepare your product design/logo for promotion, or spending time with the research team to analyse consumer survey data.Since all of these activities form a part of marketing, it’s a good idea to have a working knowledge of all these essential skills so as to qualify for senior management roles.How Can Executive Education Help?Marketing is the backbone of any company today. Your product literally has no value until it’s promoted effectively in the market. And this is exactly why each department needs to possess marketing skills to stay in and beat the competition.To help the ambitious professionals of the 21st-century sharpen their marketing skills and make their way to the senior management roles, the prestigious IIM Kozhikode has introduced its Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Marketing Management (EPGCMM) programme. The one-year Interactive Learning course is aimed at providing specialised marketing management training to executives, helping them grow into senior management positions in their respective organisations. The Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Marketing Management (EPGCMM) programme can be attended in any of the Times TSW centres across India, and the sessions are delivered live via a technology platform by none other but the senior faculty from IIM Kozhikode. So come and join the EPGCMM programme to augment your marketing skills and rise as the best in the field.

Last year, California was granted the power to scrutinize proposed health insurance rate increases by insurance companies. Insurance companies planning to increase their plan premiums by more than 10 percent are subject to rate reviews. Excessive premium increases would necessitate insurers to publicly justify the unjust rate hikes.Despite the implementation of rate reviews, little help is seen by millions of consumers. California health insurance premiums continue to skyrocket making it hard for Californians to afford health care coverage.Even though California can publicly shame and persuade insurers to prevent proposed increases, it still lacks the power to reject the proposed excessive rates by insurance companies. The state couldn’t even stop Anthem Blue Cross from increasing one of its coverage rates by 16.1 percent even though it was publicly declared that the planned rates were excessive.Consumers Demand California Health Insurance Rate RegulationsSince 2002, Californians have seen a 153 percent increase in employer health insurance. Because of this, the desire to regulate California health insurance premiums increased more than ever. Consumer groups want regulators to do more than embarrass and persuade. They want to put an end to excessive premium increases. A consumer advocate group even stated that they will begin gathering signatures from people to help set up real rate control.Even though the Department of Insurance was able to reduce, postpone and withdraw 50 out of the 300 rate changes last year, it’s not enough. According to Deputy Commissioner Janice Rocco, in order to adequately protect consumers, having the authority to reject excessive California health insurance premium increases is necessary. However, there are still ways that consumers can afford health coverage despite increasing premiums.How Can Consumers Afford California Health Insurance Plans?If you are living on a tight budget, you might be pondering whether to get health care coverage or not with premiums on the rise. There are still ways to help people afford the health coverage they need.A high-deductible health plan is an option for people who are in good health. Compared to co-pay plans, high-deductible plans offer lower premiums by as much as 40 to 50 percent. With the passage of the health care reform law, high-deductible plans are appealing more than ever. Preventive care services are 100 percent covered with no out-of-pocket costs even before meeting your deductible. Meaning, annual physical exams and screening procedures for health conditions can be enjoyed without worrying about co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles.You can use this added free benefit as long as you go with in-network providers. Constantly monitoring your health can help keep money in your pocket. Early detection of illness can significantly decrease your out-of-pocket medical expenses. As we all know, developing a chronic illness is harder to treat resulting in expensive medical bills.Now is the time to get a California health insurance plan. Once you have a pre-existing condition, insurance companies can charge you higher premiums or even deny you coverage. Without health coverage, you are financially exposed to huge medical bills when illness strikes. Luckily, insurers cannot deny children with pre-existing conditions health coverage due to the Affordable Care Act mandate. As for adults, you need to wait until 2014 when health care reform fully takes its course.While your health is good, get coverage now to keep rates low. You should also do some comparison shopping every year to get the most affordable health insurance rates from insurance companies in your area.