What We're Reading

The health policy journal club is an interdisciplinary, inter-professional group convened monthly by the Farley Health Policy Center to discuss timely topics in health policy. A curated selection of high-yield articles provides the basis for discussion. Past topics have included income inequality and health, professionalism in medicine, patients as consumers, and adjusting payment for measures of social risk. This page presents the reading list from the most recent journal club.

Readings

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Achieving whole health: A new approach for veterans and the nation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

This journal club focused on chapters 2, 4, and 7: Defining Whole Health, Whole Health in Practice, and Infrastructure for Scaling and Spreading Whole Health.

Background

The committee that authored this report was tasked with examining “the potential for improving health outcomes through whole health care and recommending future directions and priorities for the VA and other healthy systems interested in implementing a system of whole person care”. It defines whole health and whole person care, building on prior definitions and frameworks. While the committee did not find any examples of systems that were delivering care completely aligned with their aspirational definition, they do highlight several exemplar systems that address the foundational elements of whole health.