Choosing chronic disease measures for HEDIS: conceptual framework and review of seven clinical areas

Few quality measures are available today that assess care for chronic conditions. Concern has been expressed by the developers of the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) that the current system may not capture the critical dimensions of quality for chronic diseases. This article provides a conceptual framework for selecting chronic diseases for which measures of quality should be developed, reviews the literature on the effectiveness of interventions for the diseases that meet the criteria, and recommends possible areas for the development of quality measures.