Population Health: Taking Action

For more than a century, we’ve been on a mission to provide Santa Barbara County — and all its diverse communities — with compassionate health care and uncompromising quality. Government ratings now place our patient care among the top 2% of hospitals nationwide.

Population Health is a new initiative from Cottage Health. It’s designed to improve the health outcomes of all our communities by keeping people healthy and helping them prevent unnecessary illness and more expensive health care.

In a nutshell, Population Health helps people before they have a health emergency, so that they stay healthier overall, and less likely to need hospitalization.

Population Health identifies the needs, differences and opportunities for improvement within a specific population or demographic and collaborates with other local nonprofits to help more of our neighbors live long, healthy and productive lives.

To understand the best ways to improve the wellbeing of residents throughout Santa Barbara County, Population Health launched a community health needs assessment last year. The data have been analyzed and strategies are now being implemented to address the key areas of access to care, chronic conditions and mental health. These new initiatives include programs aimed at providing increased access to care and care management for chronic conditions, and behavioral health collaboratives. The goal of these evidence-based programs is significant health improvements throughout the county, as part of CH’s mission to reach those in need, even beyond hospital walls.

Learn more at: cottagehealth.org/pophealth