In-depth health surveillance and clinical nutrition in farmed Atlantic salmon: a strategic attempt to detect and mitigate an HSMI outbreak.

Fish health personnel have limited tools in combatting viral diseases such as heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) in open net-pen farmed Atlantic salmon. In this study, we aimed to predict HSMI by intensified health monitoring and apply clinical nutrition to mitigate the condition. We followed a commercial cohort (G1) of Atlantic salmon that was PRV-1 naïve when transferred to a sea cage at a location where HSMI outbreaks commonly occur. The fish in the other cages (G2-G6) at the location had a different origin than G1 and were PRV-1 positive prior to sea transfer. By continuous analysis of production data and sequentially (approximately every fourth week) performing autopsy, RT-qPCR (for PRV-1 and selected immune genes), blood and histological analysis of 10 fish from G1 and G2, we identified the time of PRV-1 infection in G1 and predicted the onset of HSMI prior to any clinical signs of disease. Identical sequences across partial genomes of PRV-1 isolates from G1 and G2 suggest the likely transfer from infected cages to G1. The isolates were grouped into a genogroup known to be of high virulence. A commercial health diet was applied during the HSMI outbreak, and the fish had low mortality and an unaffected appetite. In conclusion, we show that fish health and welfare can benefit from in-depth health monitoring. We also discuss the potential health value of clinical nutrition as a mean to mitigate HSMI.

Systematizing Heart Failure Population Health.

Population health and population health management of patients with heart failure aim to identify all patients with the condition in a population, to characterize and risk stratify subgroups of patients, to improve care delivery by leveraging technology and data so providers can improve care coordination, to engage disease management programs, and to create cost-effective health systems that reduce financial burden on patients and providers. This requires a shift in our treatment paradigm from reactive treatment to proactive primary and secondary prevention. Shifts from fee-for-service to value-based payment models promise to encourage population health.

Exploring the Lagged Correlation Between Baidu Index and Influenza-Like Illness - China, 2014-2019.

Introduction: This study investigated the lagged correlation between Baidu Index for influenza-related keywords and influenza-like illness percentage (ILI%) across regions in China. The aim is to establish a scientific foundation for utilizing Baidu Index as an early warning tool for influenza-like illness epidemics. Methods: In this study, data on ILI% and Baidu Index were collected from 30 provincial-level administrative divisions (PLADs) spanning April 2014 to March 2019. The Baidu Index was categorized into Overall Index, Ordinary Index, Prevention Index, Symptom Index, and Treatment Index based on search query themes. The lagged correlation between the Baidu Index and ILI% was examined through the cross-correlation function (CCF) method. Results: Correlating the Baidu Overall Index of 30 PLADs with ILI% revealed CCF values ranging from 0.46 to 0.86, with a median lag of 0.5 days. Subcategory analysis indicated that the Prevention Index and Symptom Index exhibited quicker responses to ILI%, with median lags of -9 and -0.5 days, respectively, compared to 0 and 3 days for the Ordinary and Treatment Indexes. The median lag days between the Baidu Index and the ILI% were earlier in the northern PLADs compared to the southern PLADs. Discussion: The Prevention and Symptom Indexes show promising predictive capabilities for influenza-like illness epidemics.

India's Potential as a Leader in Cancer Care Progress in the Future: A Synthetic Interdisciplinary Perspective.

This paper comprehensively analyzes India's potential to become a leader in cancer care in the Global South, particularly in precision population cancer medicine (PPCM). Through an interdisciplinary lens, it examines the current landscape of cancer care in India, highlighting its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in this domain. This review explores the concept of knowledge translation and its importance in bridging the gap between knowledge generation and implementation in medical sciences and applies this to the Indian healthcare scenario. The review then delves into India's technological prowess, exemplified by its digital health initiatives such as the CoWIN (winning over COVID-19) app and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which provide a strong foundation for leveraging advanced technologies in healthcare. The authors discuss India's pharmaceutical industry, often referred to as the "pharmacy of the world," emphasizing its crucial role in global drug manufacturing and distribution. It also examines the country's emerging genomic research landscape, including initiatives such as GenomeIndia and the Indian Cancer Genome Atlas Foundation, which are pivotal for advancing personalized medicine. A significant portion of the review is dedicated to analyzing India's clinical trial ecosystem. It traces the evolution of regulatory frameworks governing clinical research in the country and highlights recent reforms that have made India an increasingly attractive destination for global studies, the potential adoption of innovative trial designs and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven analyses. Crucially, the authors confront the formidable obstacles inherent in India's complex healthcare landscape, illuminating the unique challenges that must be overcome. The review acknowledges India's underrepresentation in global clinical trials despite its large population and significant cancer burden. The issue of financial toxicity in cancer care is discussed, underscoring the need for affordable treatment options. The study also points out the nascent state of India's genomic databases, which account for only a small percentage of global genetic data. Despite these challenges, the authors posit that by effectively leveraging its information technology (IT) infrastructure, robust pharmaceutical sector, and large, diverse population, India has the potential to develop unique, country-specific solutions for cancer care. The study suggests that by fostering genomic research, strategically reforming its clinical trial ecosystem, and harnessing its digital capabilities, India could transform its cancer care landscape and emerge as a model for other developing nations in the Global South. In essence, this paper provides a roadmap for India's journey towards becoming a leader in PPCM, offering valuable insights for policymakers, healthcare professionals, and researchers in the field of oncology and precision medicine. Indeed, by using PPCM as a "pilot project," India can learn to use its new strategies to improve non-cancer care disease prevention, early detection, and improved and more cost-effective management. This approach could revolutionize cancer care in India and serve as a model for other developing nations in the Global South. By leveraging the strategies and technologies developed for PPCM, India could significantly enhance its healthcare system, highlighting the importance and urgency of improving cancer care in the region.

Germany's national public health gets reorganized: A new institute shall take center stage.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the German federal government recently orchestrated a fundamental change to its public health infrastructure. This reconstruction centers around the founding of a National Institute for Prevention and Education in Medicine (Bundesinstitut für Prävention und Aufklärung in der Medizin, BIPAM) at the cost of two federal institutions, the Robert Koch-Institute (RKI) and the Federal Center for Health Education (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung, BzGA). Thus, the Federal Ministry of Health (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, BMG) plans to dissolve the BzGA and integrate its personnel into the future BIPAM. Further, all RKI research and surveillance activities related to non-communicable diseases, including AI methods development will be transferred into the BIPAM. The RKI responsibilities will solely focus on infectious diseases. According to announced plans of the BMG the primary objective for establishing the BIPAM is to address non-communicable diseases and enhance overall population health. However, the medical specialist training for public health remains non-academic at a state institution. Simultaneously the BMG already replaced two thirds of experts of the permanent commission on vaccination (Ständige Impfkommission, STIKO) and determined new procedures for appointing future expert commissioners. With these changes, Germany embarks on an extraordinary reshuffling of its national public health organizations and responsibilities, by fundamentally separating all issues around non-communicable diseases from those of infectious diseases. Germany's unraveled research tasks of public health authorities however remains unmet. Thus, 2024 marks a pivotal caesura for public health in the modern history of Germany.

Precision Population Cancer Medicine in Cancer of the Uterine Cervix: A Potential Roadmap to Eradicate Cervical Cancer.

With the success of the Human Genome Project, the era of genomic medicine (GM) was born. Later on, as GM made progress, there was a feeling of exhilaration that GM could help resolve many disease processes. It also led to the conviction that personalized medicine was possible, and a relatively synonymous word, precision medicine (PM), was coined. However, the influence of environmental factors and social determinants of diseases was only partially given their due importance in the definition of PM, although more recently, this has been recognized. With the rapid advances in GM, big data, data mining, wearable devices for health monitoring, telemedicine, etc., PM can be more easily extended to population-level health care in disease management, prevention, early screening, and so on.and the term precision population medicine (PPM) more aptly describes it. PPM's potential in cancer care was posited earlier,and the current authors planned a series of cancer disease-specific follow-up articles. These papers are mainly aimed at helping emerging students in health sciences (medicine, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, public health, population health), healthcare management (health-focused business administration, nonprofit administration, public institutional administration, etc.), and policy-making (e.g., political science), although not exclusively. This first disease-specific report focuses on the cancer of the uterine cervix (CC). It describes how recent breakthroughs can be leveraged as force multipliers to improve outcomes in CC - by improving early detection, better screening for CC, potential GM-based interventions during the stage of persistent Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and treatment interventions - especially among the disadvantaged and resource-scarce populations. This work is a tiny step in our attempts to improve outcomes in CC and ultimately eradicate CC from the face of the earth.

An Atypical Course of Cardiomyopathy Syndrome (CMS) in Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Fed a Clinical Nutrition Diet.

Cardiomyopathy syndrome (CMS) poses a significant threat to farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), leading to high mortality rates during the seawater phase. Given that controlled experimental challenge trials with PMCV do not reproduce the mortality observed in severe field outbreaks of CMS, field trials on natural CMS outbreaks are warranted. This field study explored the impact of a clinical nutrition intervention, specifically a diet enriched with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), on a severe CMS outbreak in a commercial sea farm. CMS was diagnosed in a single sea cage with high mortality rates. Histopathological analysis, RT-qPCR in situ hybridization for virus detection, and fatty acid composition analysis were used to monitor the impact of disease and the inclusion of EPA and DHA in heart tissue. Following the implementation of clinical nutrition, a decline in mortality rates, regression of CMS-associated changes, and a significant reduction in piscine myocarditis virus (PMCV) RNA load were observed within the salmon population. Fatty acid composition analysis of heart samples demonstrated increased levels of EPA and DHA, reinforcing the association between dietary factors, viral load dynamics, and overall fish health. Although further validation is needed in future studies, as field trials may not be sufficient to establish causation, our results indicate that optimizing the EPA + DHA levels may prove beneficial in severe CMS outbreaks.

An Overview of the Use of Precision Population Medicine in Cancer Care: First of a Series.

Advances in science and technology in the past century and a half have helped improve disease management, prevention, and early diagnosis and better health maintenance. These have led to a longer life expectancy in most developed and middle-income countries. However, resource- and infrastructure-scarce countries and populations have not enjoyed these benefits. Furthermore, in every society, including in developed nations, the lag time from new advances, either in the laboratory or from clinical trials, to using those findings in day-to-day medical practice often takes many years and sometimes close to or longer than a decade. A similar trend is seen in the application of "precision medicine" (PM) in terms of improving population health (PH). One of the reasons for such lack of application of precision medicine in population health is the misunderstanding of equating precision medicine with genomic medicine (GM) as if they are the same. Precision medicine needs to be recognized as encompassing genomic medicine in addition to other new developments such as big data analytics, electronic health records (EHR), telemedicine, and information communication technology. By leveraging these new developments together and applying well-tested epidemiological concepts, it can be posited that population/public health can be improved. In this paper, we take cancer as an example of the benefits of recognizing the potential of precision medicine in applying it to population/public health. Breast cancer and cervical cancer are taken as examples to demonstrate these hypotheses. There exists significant evidence already to show the importance of recognizing "precision population medicine" (PPM) in improving cancer outcomes not only in individual patients but also for its applications in early detection and cancer screening (especially in high-risk populations) and achieving those goals in a more cost-efficient manner that can reach resource- and infrastructure-scarce societies and populations. This is the first report of a series that will focus on individual cancer sites in the future.

Should more attention be paid to polio sequela cases in China?

Since "Global Polio Eradication Initiative" was launched by World Health Assembly in 1988, the incidence rate of polio has been reduced by more than 99%, and the whole world has entered a post polio era nowadays. China has been a polio free status recognized by World Health Organization for 22 years and most people believe that no more public health concerns need to be given. How is the population of polio survivors in China? What strategies of health economics and actions of public health for those with polio are ethically appropriate? This article, first of all, deeply summarizes and analyzes the history, current situation and unmet needs of population with polio sequelae and post-polio syndrome in China, and then, puts forward important issues faced by polio survivors who natural infected and who due to vaccine associated paralytic polio and vaccine derived poliovirus. The management of polio survivor is not only a medical and rehabilitation problem involving accessibility, accommodations, but also a public health issue, and most importantly, an ethical concern. Furthermore, from the perspective of ethics such as Justice and Cooperation, the author demonstrates the rationality and necessity of continuing to pay more attention to polio sequela cases at this stage in China. Finally, many valuable suggestions and practical recommendations are given.

Self-reported vaccination-related behavior patterns among healthcare workers and the association with self-directed learning frequency: A nationwide cross-sectional survey.

Background: Healthcare workers play an essential role in improving the public's vaccination uptake, but the full picture of such workers' engagement in vaccination-related behaviors has not been appropriately identified. According to the Integrated Theory of Health Behavior Change, self-directed learning may be a promising intervention for fostering engagement in vaccination-related behaviors, but the association between self-directed learning and such behaviors remains unclear. This study aimed to determine Chinese healthcare workers' level of engagement in behaviors for combatting vaccine-preventable diseases and assess the association between frequency of performing vaccine-focused SDL and engagement in vaccination-related behaviors. Materials and methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted from January 27 to February 21, 2022, using the survey platform "wjx." Respondents were restricted to healthcare workers aged 18-65 years. A Sankey diagram and bar plots were constructed to determine patterns of engagement in a vaccination-related-behavior chain. Unconditional binary logistic regression models were fitted to determine the association between frequency of performing vaccine-focused self-directed learning and engagement in vaccination-related behaviors. Results: Of the 2,248 survey respondents, data for 2,065 were analyzed. Participants who had received influenza or pneumococcal vaccination, routinely recommended vaccination to patients, tracked patients' vaccination status, and recommended efficiently accounted for 43.2%, 50.8%, 40.3%, and 36.4% of the total participants, respectively. When only considering those who routinely made such recommendations, the proportion of those who performed tracking and efficient recommendation was 28.8% and 26.2%, respectively. When compared to performing self-directed learning "never to less than once/six months," performing self-directed learning "more than once/week" was positively associated with being vaccinated (OR, 95% CI: 2.30, 1.74-3.03), routinely recommending vaccination (OR, 95% CI: 4.46, 3.30-6.04), and tracking the status of patients so recommended (OR, 95% CI: 6.18, 4.35-8.76). Conclusions: Chinese healthcare workers' pattern of engagement in vaccination-related behaviors must be improved. Higher frequencies of engagement in self-directed learning are associated with more active engagement in vaccination-related behaviors, meaning raising such frequencies could be a promising intervention for fostering behavior changes in this regard and ultimately increasing vaccination coverage.

An LDLR missense variant poses high risk of familial hypercholesterolemia in 30% of Greenlanders and offers potential of early cardiovascular disease intervention.

The common Arctic-specific LDLR p.G137S variant was recently shown to be associated with elevated lipid levels. Motivated by this, we aimed to investigate the effect of p.G137S on metabolic health and cardiovascular disease risk among Greenlanders to quantify its impact on the population. In a population-based Greenlandic cohort (n = 5,063), we tested for associations between the p.G137S variant and metabolic health traits as well as cardiovascular disease risk based on registry data. In addition, we explored the variant's impact on plasma NMR measured lipoprotein concentration and composition in another Greenlandic cohort (n = 1,629); 29.5% of the individuals in the cohort carried at least one copy of the p.G137S risk allele. Furthermore, 25.4% of the heterozygous and 54.7% of the homozygous carriers had high levels (>4.9 mmol/L) of serum LDL cholesterol, which is above the diagnostic level for familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). Moreover, p.G137S was associated with an overall atherosclerotic lipid profile, and increased risk of ischemic heart disease (HR [95% CI], 1.51 [1.18-1.92], p = 0.00096), peripheral artery disease (1.69 [1.01-2.82], p = 0.046), and coronary operations (1.78 [1.21-2.62], p = 0.0035). Due to its high frequency and large effect sizes, p.G137S has a marked population-level impact, increasing the risk of FH and cardiovascular disease for up to 30% of the Greenlandic population. Thus, p.G137S is a potential marker for early intervention in Arctic populations.

Epidemiology and Biosecurity for Veterinarians Working with Honey bees (Apis mellifera).

Honeybee veterinary medicine is a developing field in Canada and the United States. Veterinarians interested in working with honeybees should develop a comprehensive knowledge base on disease dynamics as it applies to the individual, colony, apiary, and broader honeybee populations. There are currently several governmental, academic, and industry organizations that are carrying out epidemiological-based surveys. Although honeybees face unique challenges in regard to biosecurity, the basic principles still apply. Veterinarians can use their expertise in the area of biosecurity to make improvements to current protocols within the apiary and beekeeping operations.

Interventions and observations associated with survival of orphaned shelter kittens undergoing treatment for diarrhea.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to identify significant associations between treatment interventions and survival of orphaned shelter kittens with diarrhea. METHODS: Orphaned kittens admitted to a large open-intake municipal animal shelter and entering a volunteer foster care provider network between April 2016 and July 2017 were studied. Individual orphaned kittens for which the care provider sought examination by shelter veterinarians because of clinical signs of diarrhea were included. Treatments administered were recorded and their association with kitten survival to adoption or transfer to a rescue partner was statistically examined. RESULTS: A total of 1718 orphaned kittens were fostered, among which 220 kittens (12.8%) from 118 different litters were presented for evaluation of diarrhea. A total of 172 (78.2%) kittens underwent treatment for their diarrhea, among which 153 (89.0%) survived to adoption or transfer to a rescue partner and 19 (11.0%) died or were humanely euthanized. Kittens with diarrhea that were ⩾4 weeks of age were 24.8 times more likely to survive (95% confidence interval [CI] 6.8-89.8; P <0.0001). While controlling for age, kittens that received a vitamin and mineral supplement were 12.8 times more likely to survive (95% CI 3.1-52.5; P = 0.0004) than kittens with diarrhea that did not receive the supplement. Treatment with subcutaneous fluids, penicillin G, tube feeding, a probiotic containing Enterococcus faecium SF68, ponazuril or metronidazole did not statistically significantly increase the survival of kittens with diarrhea. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Age ⩾4 weeks and treatment of diarrhea with a vitamin and mineral supplement favorably improves survival of orphaned kittens to adoption. Application of these findings are likely to improve the health and welfare of this population and contribute to a refinement in use of shelter resources.

Living With COVID-19: A Systemic and Multi-Criteria Approach to Enact Evidence-Based Health Policy.

The lifting of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) lockdown requires, in the short and medium terms, a holistic and evidence-based approach to population health management based on combining risk factors and bio-economic outcomes, including actors' behaviors. This dynamic and global approach to health control is necessary to deal with the new paradigm of living with an infectious disease, which disrupts our individual freedom and behaviors. The challenge for policymakers consists of defining methods of lockdown-lifting and follow-up (middle-term rules) that best meet the needs for resumption of economic activity, societal wellbeing, and containment of the outbreak. There is no simple and ready-to-use way to do this since it means considering several competing objectives at the same time and continuously adapting the strategy and rules, ideally at local scale. We propose a framework for creating a precision evidence-based health policy that simultaneously considers public health, economic, and societal dimensions while accounting for constraints and uncertainty. It is based on the four following principles: integrating multiple and heterogeneous information, accepting navigation with uncertainty, adjusting the strategy dynamically with feedback mechanisms, and managing clusters through a multi-scalar conception. The evidence-based policy intervention for COVID-19 obtained includes scientific background via epidemiological modeling and bio-economic modeling. A set of quantitative and qualitative indicators are used as feedback to precisely monitor the societal-economic-epidemiological dynamics, allowing tightening or loosening of measures before epidemic damage (re-)occurs. Altogether, this allows an evidence-based policy that steers the strategy with precision and avoids any political shock.

Clinical Decision Support May Link Multiple Domains to Improve Patient Care: Viewpoint.

Integrating clinical decision support (CDS) across the continuum of population-, encounter-, and precision-level care domains may improve hospital and clinic workflow efficiency. Due to the diversity and volume of electronic health record data, complexity of medical and operational knowledge, and specifics of target user workflows, the development and implementation of comprehensive CDS is challenging. Additionally, many providers have an incomplete understanding of the full capabilities of current CDS to potentially improve the quality and efficiency of care delivery. These varied requirements necessitate a multidisciplinary team approach to CDS development for successful integration. Here, we present a practical overview of current and evolving applications of CDS approaches in a large academic setting and discuss the successes and challenges. We demonstrate that implementing CDS tools in the context of linked population-, encounter-, and precision-level care provides an opportunity to integrate complex algorithms at each level into a unified mechanism to improve patient management.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Confidence in Accountable Care Organization-Based Payment Models Among RI Physicians.

Study Objective or Background: To assess Rhode Island (RI) physician knowledge, attitudes, and confidence to succeed in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Study Design and Methods: We surveyed RI physicians' attitudes and beliefs about ACOs, including scales measuring Physician Knowledge (7 Multiple Choice and True/False items), Attitudes (8 Likert scale items), and Confidence (7 Likert Scale Items), and examined how physician characteristics related to these measures. Primary Results: The response rate was 6 percent (72/1183). Means (100-point scale) and standard deviations were calculated for Knowledge 65.3 (22), Attitudes for ACO participants 56.3 (13.2) and ACO non-participants 42.7 (14.3), and Confidence 32.4 (25.9). Primary care physicians had higher Attitudes compared with specialists among ACO participants (60.2 vs. 51.8, p=.047) and ACO non-participants (48.2 vs. 34.4, p=.030). Principal Conclusions: RI Physicians have low scores in Knowledge, Attitudes, and Confidence scales in ACOs. Primary care physicians have more positive Attitudes about ACOs than specialists. This study is limited by its low response rate. [Full article available at http://rimed.org/rimedicaljournal-2019-03.asp].

Patients Are Our Teachers.

In the patient-physician encounter, physicians hone their skills while alleviating the patient's suffering. Both benefit. Leaning on the work of Hippocrates, Darwin, and William Osler, the authors sketch out the case for honoring patients as indispensable teachers of the art and science of medicine. They argue that this tradition of Hippocratic medicine both anticipates modern precision medicine and reawakens a focus on public health medicine, each a benefit to the patients and communities served by physicians. A community that compromises the learning relationship of physician to patient and population undermines quality of care.

Clinically Prepared Veterinary Students: Enhancing Veterinary Student Hands-on Experiences and Supporting Hospital Caseload Using Shelter Medicine Program.

Referral-level medicine is important in the veterinary curriculum, however veterinary students also need a solid base knowledge of clinically relevant, routine surgical and diagnostic skills to be clinically prepared after graduation. Exposure to a referral-only, or primarily referral caseload, does not always provide veterinary students with the routine hands-on experiences and competencies expected by the American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Australian Veterinary Boards Council, or prospective employers. The aim of this descriptive study was to assess how a shelter medicine program can fill the companion animal caseload gap and create the necessary hands-on experiences considered essential in the veterinary curriculum. Pedagogical frameworks, course curriculum and design, student experiences, and student assessments were described for three core curricular areas (surgery, medical days, population medicine) of the Shelter Medicine Program at Mississippi State University. The shelter surgery experience provided a high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter environment where fourth-year students averaged 65 sterilization surgeries in two weeks and demonstrated a quantifiable decrease in surgical time. The shelter surgery experience added on average 9,000 small animal cases per year to the overall hospital caseload. Shelter medical days, where students provide veterinary care during on-site shelter visits, created opportunities for third-year students to directly interact with shelter animals by performing physical examinations and diagnostic testing, and to gain experience in developing treatment protocols and recommendations for commonly encountered problems. The shelter medical days experience averaged over 700 small animal cases per year and over 1,500 diagnostic procedures. Finally, students participated in 15 onsite shelter consultations where they obtained a working knowledge of biosecurity at a population level, including how to minimize the risk of infectious diseases spreading to healthy populations. Despite several challenges, results from this curricular program assessment support the aim that animal shelters and humane organizations offer opportunities that can be mutually beneficial for both animal organizations and veterinary students. The primary care caseload for the teaching institution was positively impacted, and students were better prepared to meet potential employers' expectations and fulfill required core competencies in veterinary medical education.

"Thank You for Giving Me a Voice!" A Longitudinal Evaluation of Patients' Experience of Partnering With Students in an Australian Medical School.

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the patient-partner experience in a longitudinal program called Integrated Population Medicine in the Sydney Medical School to assess its acceptability. The program exposed senior medical students to the lived experience of chronic disease. METHODS: We surveyed 267 people with chronic conditions recruited as patient-partners by the 2012 student cohort in a mixed-methods longitudinal cohort study. Surveys were administered 'over' 18 months: before, during, and after the program. RESULTS: A total of 155 (58%) patient-partners completed the baseline survey; 52 patients returned all 3 surveys. Patient-partners remained very positive about the program across all surveys. More than 95% of respondents enjoyed interacting with the student, and most were very positive about their role in teaching the student. Three major themes emerged: willingness to help, a sense of gratitude and enjoyment, and a chance to teach and learn. Participants were willing to discuss their illness experiences and were keen to spend more time with students. CONCLUSIONS: Patients are willing participants in longitudinal patient-partner programs. They perceive benefits for themselves and others, for the health system, and for students and would like to become more actively involved in medical education.

Population health and medicine: Policy and financial drivers.

PURPOSE: The financial and policy levers of population health and potential opportunities for pharmacists are described. SUMMARY: Three long-standing problems drive the focus on population health: (1) the United States suffers far worse population health outcomes compared with those of other developed nations that spend significantly less on healthcare, (2) the U.S. healthcare system's focus on "sick care" fails to address upstream prevention and population health improvement, and (3) financial incentives for healthcare delivery are poorly aligned with improvements in population health outcomes. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) was arguably the first major healthcare legislation since 1965 and had 3 main strategies for improving population health: expand health insurance coverage, control healthcare costs, and improve the healthcare delivery system. Federal and state legislation as well as Medicare and Medicaid financing strategies have designated mechanisms to reward advances in population outcomes since the passage of the ACA. States are responsible for many of the factors that affect population health, and a bipartisan effort that builds upon state and federal collaboration will likely be needed to implement the necessary health policy initiative. Population health issues affect productivity in the United States; conversely, improvements in population health may increase productivity, helping to offset the rising federal debt. Employers are in a position to improve population health and consequently help reduce the federal debt by addressing lifestyle, chronic disease, poverty, and inequality. National pharmacy organizations, regulatory bodies, and journal editors need to collectively agree to a threshold of quality and rigor for publication and endorsement. CONCLUSION: Knowledge of the policy and financial drivers of population health may both support pharmacists' efforts to improve population outcomes and identify opportunities for professional advancement.