Associations release diabetes guidelines
Associations release diabetes guidelines
AMA, JCAHO, NCQA coordinate measures
Organizations representing the perspectives of physicians, health plans, hospitals, and other health care organization recently cooperated in the development of a common set of evidence-based measures for evaluating performance in health care. This first-ever collaboration may make collecting and reporting outcomes data much simpler for case managers working with disease management programs.
The release of the Coordinated Performance Measurement for the Management of Adult Diabetes, jointly prepared by the American Medical Association in Chicago, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in Oakbrook Terrace, IL, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance in Washington, DC, lays the groundwork for testing a single-source approach to measuring performance of care provided to diabetes patients in multiple settings. It underscores the commitment of the three organizations to speak with a common private-sector voice on critical public-policy issues related to quality and performance measurement.
"By working from established clinical practice guidelines for diabetes care and by identifying the key data elements, this collaboration has produced a model for performance measurement that is firmly grounded in science and ready for implementation," stresses AMAExecutive Vice President E. Ratcliffe Anderson Jr., MD. "The diabetes measures are the first in what we expect to be a series of collaborative measurement sets on clinically important topics."
The next phase is a demonstration project designed with the Maine Medical Assessment Foundation in Portland, a not-for-profit health services research and quality improvement organization. MMAF will use the diabetes measures in Maine as the basis for testing the feasibility of "single data collection," the collection of data for use in both physician- and health plan-level performance measurement from a single source such as physician offices.
"By working together," notes NCQA President Margaret O’Kane, "we are not only making performance measurement more efficient, but we are also bringing measurement down to the next level of the system where doctors and patients can relate to it and take advantage of it."
The collaborative partners’ commitment to collecting information once, where possible, and using it to fill the multiple needs of the health care system hold the potential of reducing redundant, expensive data collection activities. This single-source approach ensures that physicians, provider organizations, and managed care plans receive consistent messages about the important aspects of diabetes care and in turn may improve the quality of that care.
"We believe that these collaborative initiatives have great potential to moderate the costs and data collection burden associated with performance measurement," says Dennis O’Leary, MD, president of JCAHO. "This approach also should make good sense to purchasers, consumers, and other users of performance data and information."
The AMA, the NCQA, and JCAHO plan to release measures for cardiovascular disease, pregnancy, and neonatal care within the next two years. A copy of the guidelines can be accessed on-line at www.ama-assn.org.
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