High Impact Change A: Identifying those most at risk

A person-level risk stratification model, driven by system-wide data insights, provides a shared and embedded view of admissions risk across multiple user groups.

Better Care Fund banner image

The primary focus of High Impact Change Model: reducing preventable admissions is to reduce admissions to hospitals by remaining in or returning to the community.

A1: A person level risk stratification model, aligned to admissions risk

  • Have an agreed system approach to Population Health Management, with clear leadership responsibilities.
  • Understand risk at an individual level.
  • Frame the right questions up front to be specific to hospital admission avoidance – see Putting this into Practice section for advice on clarity around admissions impact.

A2: A data-led approach joining together insight from across the system

  • Join data from across health, social care and wider sources such as public health, housing and wider local government.
  • Develop predictive models around a person’s individual risk, combining service activity patterns, demographic factors, and other local variation.
  • Be mindful of underrepresented groups in the data and other sources of potential bias.

A3: A shared view of risk, embedded within system ways of working for multiple user groups

  • Use outputs from the risk stratification to agree system interpretation and agree priorities.
  • Couple digital tools with skills, infrastructure and support to make the outputs interpretable and usable at a local level by individual practitioners, and to support service redesign.
  • The outputs should be easily refreshable and able to demonstrate any further changes in people’s risk, and the positive impact of interventions.

Identifying people at risk: suggested actions