A Q&A with Klaus Lemke, Center for Population Health IT

Here at Johns Hopkins Health Care Solutions, we’re excited about the upcoming launch of our state-of-the-art patient segmentation tool, Patient Need Groups (PNGs).

PNGs help System users understand and address the health needs within their populations by grouping individuals based on their specific health needs, individual characteristics, and behaviors.

We recently sat down with Dr. Klaus Lemke from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Lemke is the biostatistician and technical co-developer of the ACG System’s PNG feature. We discussed patient segmentation and how organizations can apply PNGs and Care Modifiers to improve outcomes within their populations.

Dr. Lemke highlights that the ACG System’s approach to population health segmentation considers all the medical conditions a patient may have, instead of one single disease or event. This allows the PNGs to categorize patients with a similar pattern of disease. Segmenting the population by specific health needs ensures patients receive better care and focused opportunities for health improvement.

While the ACG System is not the only high-quality segmentation model available, the PNGs were developed to focus on an entire population – not just elderly or high-risk patient groups. Dr. Lemke notes that ACG System users can use PNGs to focus on patients with new chronic disease or are in younger populations. This information gives us clearer insight into specific support each patient group may need.

Finally, Dr. Lemke calls out the enhanced benefits of PNGs. The PNG System provides an extra set of eyes on a population to catch patients who require more complex care management. This saves time, money, and potentially, lives.

To read the full Q&A with Dr. Lemke, click here.

To learn more about the ACG System, email acginfo@jh.edu.