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

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.