Dr James McGowan, THIS Institute, and collaborators from West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Michigan, have demonstrated that hospital-based doctors can make important contributions to improving population health through the application of public health principles to clinical practice in hospitals. In a study, published in the British Journal of Hospital Medicine, the authors argue that improving quality of care and advancing public health objectives are mutually reinforcing because healthcare remains a key determinant of health at a population level.
 
Dr McGowan commented that “hospital-based clinicians have often made transformational contributions to public health and quality of healthcare remains an important determinant of population health. By taking a ‘population perspective’ and  integrating public health principles into clinical practice, doctors should feel confident they can also make direct and valuable contributions to improving health at a population level, as well as improving the quality of care they provide for individual patients.”
 
To operationalize the principles of public health into everyday clinical practice, the authors suggest some practical examples of public health approaches to tackling important clinical problems, including antimicrobial resistance, flu and invasive infections, non-communicable diseases, multimorbidity and polypharmacy.