MHA Population Health Management 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which measure is part of the CMS Core Measures for outpatient care and directly reflects population-level preventive care performance?
- Time from triage to physician in the ED
- Colorectal cancer screening rate (Correct answer)
- Average number of medications per patient
- Surgical checklist compliance rate
Correct answer: Colorectal cancer screening rate
Colorectal cancer screening rates are a CMS outpatient core measure that reflects how well a health system delivers recommended preventive services to its population.
Question 2: A county health department wants to measure the burden of premature death in its population. Which metric is MOST appropriate?
- Crude death rate
- Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) (Correct answer)
- Case fatality rate
- Standardized mortality ratio
Correct answer: Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL)
YPLL quantifies premature mortality by summing years not lived due to early death, weighting deaths at younger ages more heavily than deaths at older ages.
Question 3: Under HIPAA, which minimum standard governs how covered entities must handle protected health information when used for population health analytics?
- The Minimum Necessary Standard (Correct answer)
- The Accounting of Disclosures Rule
- The Notice of Privacy Practices requirement
- The Safe Harbor de-identification standard
Correct answer: The Minimum Necessary Standard
The Minimum Necessary Standard requires covered entities to limit PHI access and use to only what is needed for the specific purpose, including population health data analysis.
Question 4: A health system implements a nurse navigator program for cancer patients. The PRIMARY population health goal of this program is to:
- Increase oncology department revenue
- Ensure timely, coordinated care transitions and reduce fragmentation (Correct answer)
- Reduce nursing staff overtime costs
- Expand the hospital's cancer service line
Correct answer: Ensure timely, coordinated care transitions and reduce fragmentation
Nurse navigator programs improve population health by coordinating care across providers, reducing delays and fragmentation, and supporting patients through complex treatment pathways.
Question 5: Which framework for health determinants attributes approximately 80% of health outcomes to factors outside the healthcare system?
- Donabedian model of structure, process, and outcome
- County Health Rankings model (social, economic, health behaviors, environment) (Correct answer)
- NCQA HEDIS quality framework
- IHI Model for Improvement
Correct answer: County Health Rankings model (social, economic, health behaviors, environment)
The County Health Rankings model, based on population health research, attributes ~80% of health outcomes to social, economic, behavioral, and environmental factors rather than clinical care.
Question 6: In designing a population health intervention for hypertension control, which implementation science concept helps explain why evidence-based programs often fail when scaled to new settings?
- Regression to the mean
- Voltage drop or implementation fidelity loss (Correct answer)
- Selection bias in the original study
- Hawthorne effect in pilot populations
Correct answer: Voltage drop or implementation fidelity loss
Voltage drop describes the phenomenon where intervention effectiveness diminishes when scaled beyond the original setting due to reduced fidelity, fewer resources, or contextual differences.
Question 7: A managed care organization uses a Z-code in ICD-10-CM documentation. What does recording Z59 (Problems related to housing and economic circumstances) enable?
- Billing for social work services under Medicare Part B
- Tracking social determinants of health in claims data for population-level analysis (Correct answer)
- Qualifying patients for disability benefits automatically
- Triggering a mandatory public health report to the state
Correct answer: Tracking social determinants of health in claims data for population-level analysis
Z-codes for social determinants allow health systems and payers to capture and analyze social risk factors in structured claims data, enabling equity-focused population health reporting.
MHA Population Health Management 5
Which measure is part of the CMS Core Measures for outpatient care and directly reflects population-level preventive care performance?