The essential role of population health during and beyond COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has fundamentally changed how health care systems deliver services and revealed the tenuousness of care delivery based on face-to-face office visits and fee-for-service reimbursement models. Robust population health management, fostered by value-based contract participation, integrates analytics and agile clinical programs and is adaptable to optimize outcomes and reduce risk during population-level crises. In this article, we describe how mature population health programs in a learning health system have been rapidly leveraged to address the challenges of the pandemic. Population-level data and care management have facilitated identification of demographic-based disparities and community outreach. Telemedicine and integrated behavioral health have ensured critical primary care and specialty access, and mobile health and postacute interventions have shifted site of care and optimized hospital utilization. Beyond the pandemic, population health can lead as a cornerstone of a resilient health system, better prepared to improve public health and mitigate risk in a value-based paradigm.

Oral cancer knowledge, attitudes and practices: a survey of dentists and primary care physicians in Massachusetts.

BACKGROUND: The authors conducted a study to assess dentists' and primary care physicians' oral cancer knowledge, attitudes and practices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. METHODS: The authors mailed a 38-item, pretested questionnaire to a stratified sample of dentists and primary care physicians in Massachusetts. The sample population included all general medicine, internal medicine and family practice physicians listed with the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine and all Massachusetts Dental Society members. The authors invited a random sample of more than 1,000 clinicians to participate in the survey. They assessed knowledge, attitudes and practices of respondents and performed a bivariate analysis of responses to questions by using statistical software. RESULTS: Forty-nine percent of physicians reported performing an oral cancer examination in patients aged 40 to 55 years, compared with 92 percent of dentists (P < .001). For patients 56 years or older, 54 percent of physicians reported performing oral cancer examinations, compared with 93 percent of dentists (P < .001). More than 96 percent of physicians reported that they asked patients about smoking and alcohol use. However, only 9 percent of physicians and 39 percent of dentists were able to identify the two most common sites on which oral cancer develops (P < .001). Fifty-seven percent of dentists and 24 percent of physicians correctly identified the most common symptom of early oral cancer. CONCLUSION: This survey identified an existing gap in knowledge and practices among physicians and dentists and underscores the need to enhance oral cancer education among both professional groups.