How to measure the outcomes of chronic disease management.
The fastest-growing methodology for disease management outcomes measurement is valid, transparent, easy to apply, and freely available in the public domain and this article. It measures the actual goal of disease management, which is to reduce the rate of adverse events associated with the disease(s) being managed. Changes in this rate can be translated into a return on investment using some explicit assumptions about comorbidities and episode costs. Outcomes measured in this way show that in the health plan community as a whole, disease management in the broadest sense is working, as measured by the relative stability in the rate of adverse medical events closely associated with common chronic disease during this decade of increasing prevalence of most of the common chronic conditions.
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Disease Management Purchasing Consortium, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481, USA. DiseasMgmt@aol.com
D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D019468:Disease Management; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007345:Insurance Claim Review; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D010343:Patient Admission; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods