Population Health Analytics

For this week’s blog post, we sat down with Harriet Martyn, Director of International Business Development at Johns Hopkins HealthCare Solutions, to talk about her recent visit to the HLTH conference in Amsterdam!

Q: Hi Harriet, can you tell us about HLTH Europe and why it was important for you to attend?

A: Of course! HLTH Europe is one of the leading health care innovation conferences in Europe and brings together technology providers, experts, health systems, policymakers and industry leaders from around the world to share their perspectives and experiences. I’ve been to HLTH Europe twice now and always found the events to be extremely rewarding, both in terms of great networking with ministries of health and health care organizations across Europe and also finding out first-hand about the priorities shaping digital health care across different regions.

It is also a chance to find out more about how health care systems are evolving across Europe and where Johns Hopkins expertise and offerings — including the Johns Hopkins ACG System — can continue to support organizations on their population health journeys, especially as they navigate challenges like data sovereignty, pressures on health care funding and skilled workforce shortages.

Q: What were your biggest takeaways from the conference?

A: One of the biggest takeaways is that health care systems across Europe are all navigating change in some way or other. While countries are approaching areas such as population health slightly differently, there is a shared focus on innovation, prevention, value-based care and finding more sustainable and scalable ways to deliver health care.

There was a real acknowledgement that health care organizations are operating in a changing environment, balancing financial pressures with the need to transform how care is delivered. The conversations I had were not just about technology; they were about establishing long-lasting partnerships.

There is a real appetite for innovation and a willingness to explore new ways of delivering better care with collaboration — something that we have a long history of supporting. We’ve partnered with health care analytics and technology companies across Europe and beyond to help health systems with flexible, scalable solutions that integrate into existing workflows without creating long-term dependency. It’s exciting to see this approach gaining momentum!

Q: What did you learn about how countries are implementing value-based care while navigating these challenges?

A: I heard how Singapore is moving from fee-for-service to capitation-based payments and reinvesting hospital growth back into community and primary care as part of their commitment to focusing on proactive and preventive population health care.

Germany is investing in preventive care with a strong focus on reducing costs and making sure resources are directed where they’ll have the greatest impact within a fee-for-service model and using AI to innovate and automate processes to mitigate cost pressures.

Although the approaches vary, the common theme is a growing focus on prevention, proactive care and improving population health — much as it is in the UK and the US — and achieving this through digital enablement.

Q: How are health care organizations thinking about partnerships to help them achieve their goals?

A: One of the strongest messages I took away from the conference was that health care organizations aren’t looking for technology alone: they’re looking for transformative partnerships and technology that can integrate with human-provided care. They are also looking beyond pilots to longer-term relationships with shared goals and measurable outcomes.

While technology is important, organizations are also adapting their people, processes and ways of working so they can get the full value from those solutions. Adding new technology to old processes without upskilling teams will not lead to transformation.

Q: Were there any other themes that stood out?

A: The themes of longevity (or healthy aging) and preventive well-being initiatives are starting to come together, with organizations looking beyond treating illness and focusing much more on helping people stay healthy for longer.  That can mean an investment in mental health, physical health and social needs — looking at whole-person needs and not just single diseases in isolation.

Q: How does this tie back to the work of the Johns Hopkins ACG System team?

A: It was encouraging to see that so much of what we’re already delivering with Johns Hopkins’ customers and collaborators worldwide — supporting proactive care, improving population health and helping organizations make better use of data — can be replicated across other regions. It’s also exciting to hear about the results and impact of the actionable insights the ACG System provides, applied by clinical and analytic teams who continue to identify targeted patient cohorts, drive meaningful interventions, and effectively manage resources.

To learn more about the ACG System, visit hopkinsacg.org or contact us at acginfo@jh.edu. If you are a current ACG System customer, please reach out to your Account Manager.