Capsule commentary on James et al., Impact of a population health management intervention on disparities in cardiovascular disease control

Excerpt

The paper by James et al. is a secondary analysis that asks the question that must be asked of any population health intervention: does the intervention have equal or significant impact on subgroups of the larger population?1 The original intervention targets improved cardiovascular health outcomes by trialing two approaches to population health management: an information technology (IT) intervention and a personalized health coordinator (PHC) intervention. James et al. examined whether an IT intervention alone or an IT intervention plus a PHC could reduce cardiovascular health disparities in non-Hispanic black and Hispanic patients. Their metrics for cardiovascular control were LDL and blood pressure. They were considered at goal if measurements met guidelines or if treatment was optimal. They found that non-Hispanic white patients significantly benefited from both interventions but there was a non-significant trend towards improvement for minority patients. …