Standard outcome metrics and evaluation methodology for disease management programs. American Healthways and Johns...

Disease management is conceptually recognized as being a significant approach for closing the gaps in care identified by the Institute of Medicine as contributing to poor outcomes from our health care system. That conceptual credibility has been bolstered by the disease management industry through the adoption of an industry-standard definition of disease management and through the development and implementation of disease management accreditation programs by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, Utilization Review Accreditation Commission, and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The clinical and financial outcomes of disease management programs continue to be suspect, however, due to the lack of an industry standard set of outcomes metrics and a uniform methodology for evaluating those metrics. As a result, the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of any individual program is compromised, and the ability to effectively compare results across programs of different delivery designs is non-existent. To address this issue, American Healthways and Johns Hopkins convened a consensus conference of nearly 150 health care professionals representing health plans, hospitals, practicing physicians (both primary care and specialty), and other health care professionals. The conference purpose was to develop a "first-step" set of metrics and a uniform methodology that could be applied industry-wide to enable meaningful comparisons between programs and to allow evaluation of individual programs whether "homegrown" or "outsourced." The consensus conferees recognized that there were many paths to this objective, but that they had to land on a set of metrics and a methodology that was "doable" in light of today's technology and data availability. The results of their consensus effort follow.