Turkey: Population Health Management

The experience in Turkey demonstrates a mix of geographic and voluntary empanelment. Under the Health Transformation Programme (HTP), Turkey established geographically distributed medicine centers with assigned patient panels (HTP). Initially, patients are assigned a physician based on geographic catchment areas as a means to improve geographic and timely access to care. However, after this initial geographic empanelment, patients were free to switch providers at will.12 While this system does prioritize patient choice and establishes a first point of contact, there are multiple opportunities for improvement. First, catchment areas are not determined based on population profiles and burden of disease, resulting in panels with needs that surpass other panels of equal sizes. Secondly, patient registers are not capable of tracking when patients switch providers, compromising coordination of care and underscoring the necessity of pairing empanelment – and all population health management activities –  with strong information systems. Learn more about Turkey in our Promising Practice case study.

References:

  1. Bitton A, Pesec M, Benotti E, Ratcliffe H, Lewis T, Hirschhorn L, et al. Shaping tiered health care delivery system in accordance with People-Centered Integrated Care Model. Deepening Health Reform in China : Building High-Quality and Value-Based Service Delivery. World Bank Group; 2016. 
  2. Sumer S. Case Study for People Centered Health Care in Turkey Final Report. 2015 Mar.