TGIF

For the past year now, the FEHBlog has enjoyed working with a health care quality consulting group called Discern Health.  The FEHBlog ran across this recent Discern paper on integrating social care with health care in order to achieve better population health. The paper considers how accountable care organizations seek to share risk with healthcare providers and community based organizations that deliver food, etc.. The ACO uses the community based organizations to check blood pressure and so on. It's an interesting idea.

In the course of his work today, the FEHBlog ran across this recent study of well being in the U.S.  The study provides state by state wellbeing rankings.

Although improvements in certain physical health categories and community well-being signal progress, the sharp declines in overall well-being were driven by drops in purpose and social well-being metrics, as well as the mental health aspects of physical well-being. Out of a possible score of 100, the national Well-Being Index score dropped from 62.1 in 2016 to 61.5 in 2017, marking the largest year-over-year decline since the index began in 2008.

South Dakota, Vermont, and Hawaii are 1, 2, and 3 in terms of well-being.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the awful flu season apparently has peaked (CDC issues flu reports weekly during the flu season). However, "transmission is still intense, and cases from a strain that often surges late in the season are rising. 'The amount of activity is still very high,' Daniel Jernigan, director of the flu division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the data, said in an interview. 'There are still many weeks left of this flu season—probably through mid-April.'” Stay warm and hydrated this weekend.