Population Health Management (PHM) is a valuable framework and has been identified as a key approach for Ireland’s HSE as part of their drive to improve delivery of services to its population. It can be used across complex health and care systems to maximise health from available resources and address inequalities in a transparent and evidence-driven way. As a pilot programme, The Health Economics Unit delivered bespoke training to help decision makers and analysts understand how they can use PHM in their Region (Mid-West Ireland), to create positive impact for patients. 

Population Health Management is multidisciplinary approach that looks holistically at the health and wellbeing of a defined population which relies on data and evidence to drive improvement. The concepts behind PHM are relevant at every level in complex health systems and can lead to impactful change when understood.

The Health Economics Unit, in partnership with Public Health HSE Mid-West brought together public health colleagues with a wide range of expertise and experience to receive overview training in the PHM cycle and in later sessions a focus on the coding and analytic tools used by analysts to deliver the information needed to make informed decisions.

Delivering Population Health Management Training for all levels

The HEU designed and delivered a comprehensive introduction to Population Health Management, accessible for all levels. The training course was aimed at showcasing the potential benefits of PHM, as well as explaining the different techniques available and providing tools to help participants use PHM to improve their decision quality.

With separate modules for technical and non-technical attendees, the courses were open to a range of health and care workers and analysts within the Mid-West region as well as senior management and directors.

• The sessions, developed and delivered by PHM experts from the Health Economics Unit (HEU), were designed to be interactive and featured real-world examples from both the UK and Ireland to bring the content to life.
• The HEU chose to create two slightly different training streams, to cater for both technical and non-technical audiences.

For colleagues focused on decision-making the HEU offered four interactive, half day, virtual training modules covering the basics of PHM, population segmentation, risk stratification, impactibility modelling, and evaluation working across systems and learning healthcare systems, and collective options appraisal frameworks and allocative efficiency processes (including multi-criteria decision analysis and socio-technical allocation of resources approaches). This ensured all attendees gained a basic understanding of the principles and techniques available throughout the PHM cycle and where they could be applied for maximum impact.

For the more technical audience, the HEU delivered two additional hands-on sessions focused on coding and statistical techniques. These sessions equipped participants with the skills to implement key PHM methods, including population segmentation, risk stratification, and impactibility modelling. The practical approach helped analysts deepen their understanding of how to generate actionable insights to support evidence-based decision-making across the health system.

Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. Attendees praised the engaging facilitation, use of real-world examples, and clear structure of the sessions. The interactive approach, practical tools, and applicability of the material were particularly well received.

Multiple choice quizzes and essay questions with marking schemes and CPD point justifications were also generated by our PHM team to enable HSE colleagues identify applications of the course material to their day-to-day job and to gauge the success of the training with those who completed the course

After attending the course all attendees were able to understand both the potential of, and context for, using PHM in their region and the skills needed to make this happen.

Dr Marie Casey, Consultant in Public Health Medicine – Public Health Intelligence, at Public Health HSE Mid-West said: “We commissioned the HEU team to develop and deliver a course on Population Health Management for our Health Region. It was a genuine pleasure to work with this engaging and knowledgeable team who delivered a series of sessions that garnered very positive feedback. I would recommend them.”