Linda A. Bailey, JD, MHS
Senior Advisor for Health Policy, ODPHP, USDHHS

• Provided an overview of progress to date on leading health indicators

• Challenged panelists and participants to provide their input about approaches to developing leading health indicators and the types of measures that should be included

Panelists:

Eric Baumgartner, MD, MPH
Chief, Bureau of Managed Care, Texas Department of Health

• Focus on measures that will drive action, leading to health improvements. Focus on the important health topics.

• Health is influenced by factors beyond health and medicine. Give consideration to the human ecology model of health.

• The leading health indicators will be more useful if standards are developed, performance can be tracked and service providers can be compared.

Yvonne Madlock, MAT
Director, Memphis and Shelby County Health Department

• Use the KISS principle -- develop leading health indicators that are easy to translate to the public and sustainable by agencies.

• Focus on assets of communities as well as risk, threat, hazard data that will motivate community members and professionals.

• Consider a process for validating data and ways to encourage system improvement.

• Need to coordinate development of indicator sets across Federal, State and local organizations.
• Need to strive for measurability at the Federal, State and local levels.
• Use health status and risk behaviors as the basis of leading health indicators and supplement with information about social factors.

  New Orleans Transcripts and Summaries