The recent pandemic laid bare the longstanding issues in coordinating an effective response across the public health and healthcare systems. Limited connectivity, communication gaps, workforce constraints, and a lack of aligned incentives between public health agencies and healthcare organizations impeded the ability to share data, disseminate best practices, and mount a coordinated population health management strategy. These challenges exacerbated existing health inequities. While the pandemic was an acute crisis, the need to strengthen collaboration between the public health and healthcare sectors to improve population health has been recognized for decades.
To address this, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), a national organization representing over 800,000 physicians across 53 specialty societies, proposes a multi-year initiative to build capacity for enhanced coordination between clinical medicine and public health. By providing targeted capacity building assistance to its medical specialty society members, CMSS aims to enhance communication, facilitate data integration, share best practices, and build a workforce prepared for cross-sector collaboration - ultimately leading to improved population health outcomes.
CMSS will then conduct a comprehensive gap analysis to inventory barriers hindering effective public health-medicine connectivity, understand impacts on health disparities, assess specialty society capacity needs, and learn from past coordination efforts. Findings will inform recommended actions that CMSS will translate into an actionable capacity building plan. Potential activities include developing technical guidance, creating educational resources, delivering training programs, facilitating partnerships between societies and public health agencies, and disseminating best practices. CMSS will implement this multi-year plan by leveraging its robust communication platforms, professional peer learning groups, online education system, and annual meetings.
CMSS has significant experience providing capacity building assistance to specialty societies through technical guidance, training, peer learning, communication channels, and an online Learning Management System. Its experienced staff and collaborative partnerships across medicine and public health position CMSS well to execute this nationwide initiative to bridge the divide between healthcare delivery and population health management.
