The Disease Management Association of America (DMAA) has announced the launch of a programme that aims to uniformly measure and evaluate outcomes in disease and care management programs.
WASHINGTON - The Disease Management Association of America (DMAA) has announced the launch of a programme that aims to uniformly measure and evaluate "outcomes in disease and care management programs."
"This certainly stands among the disease management community's most significant research efforts to date,” Don Fetterolf, MD, chair of the DMAA Quality and Research Committee said. "Reaching consensus on a relevant and scientifically valid standard for evaluating clinical and financial outcomes is vital to the continued strong growth of disease and care management." Dr. Fetterolf will be in charge of the standards development project, which intends to present concrete results by December at the DMAA's 2006 Disease Management Leadership Forum in Denver in the first week of that month. "Our members clearly understand the potential of this project to greatly expand acceptance of disease management by all payers, public and private," said Dr. Fetterolf, Corporate Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, for Matria Healthcare Inc. Initially the group will collect data on how other organization collate their d\own data on disease outcomes. "The DMAA recognized that a gap exists in our understanding of best practices for evaluating disease and care management programs," DMAA Executive Director Tracey Moorhead said. "Our experience shows disease management works, but lack of agreement on how to measure that success has hampered our ability to convince skeptics."The Disease Management Association of America is a non-profit, voluntary membership association representing all stakeholders in the disease management industry through public and private advocacy targeting the health care industry, government agencies, employers and the general public in an effort to educate them on the important role disease management and care coordination programs play in improving healthcare quality and outcomes for persons with chronic conditions.
Fore more information visit http://www.dmaa.org
