In 2010, an Institute of Medicine expert panel estimated that a minimum of 30 percent, and probably over 50 percent, of all money spent on health care is waste – non-value adding from a patient’s perspective. Some have asserted that waste could account for as much as 65 percent of all health care spending. In 2025, a mid-point 50 percent estimate totals to well over $2 trillion dollars in financial opportunity within the United States. Almost half of all waste extraction opportunities – almost a trillion dollars per year – fall within a relatively new field called "population health."

Population health includes (1) treatments provided even though associated risks outweigh any potential benefit to the patient; (2) treatments that patients would have refused, had they been given a complete description of the treatment and its likely outcomes; and (3) high-order treatments (specialist visits, hospitalizations, ED visits, or surgical procedures) that a patient could have avoided with better "upstream" health behaviors, social networks, physical environment, public health, or primary care (low-order treatments). The concept of population health extends outside the traditional care delivery system, to social determinants of health (SDOH), including healthy behaviors and healthy living environments (physical, social, and public health)

Population health is strongly associated with "pay for value" and "value-based care" healthcare financing mechanisms. All of these approaches seek to control health care costs by aligning financial incentives around waste elimination achieved through better clinical outcomes. Waste in healthcare spending is an ethical issue, especially in the context of systemic inequity. "Bending the cost curve" could keep health care services widely accessible within modern societies, functionally improving access and equity.

Value-based care (VBC) is built on Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s quality improvement principles. Quality improvement is the science of process management. Over the years it has taken on many different names, such as TQM, CQI, GM PICOS, Baldrige, Rapid Cycle Improvement, Lean, Six Sigma, and High Reliability Organizations. VBC includes/contains population health and SDOH. It seeks to address underlying flaws in the modern healthcare system. It is thus an indispensable part of any healthcare leader’s skill set. This course equips future health care leaders with practical principles and tools for health systems management applied at a population level, extending into the treatment of individual patients.