A quality improvement tool to assess self-management support in primary care

Self management is an essential, central component of effective care for diabetes and other chronic illnesses, yet very few instruments exist to assess delivery or consistency of self-management support. The Assessment of Primary Care Resources and Supports for Chronic Disease Self-Management (PCRS) tool assesses both organizational infrastructure and delivery of self-management support services.

The PCRS was developed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Diabetes Initiative and underwent several stages of development, including three pilot tests, review by experts, and implementation by a national quality improvement (QI) program.

The development and testing of the instrument resulted in the current 16-item measure. Use of the PCRS in a QI collaborative with 20 diverse health care teams across the United States demonstrated that the instrument is helpful in assessing areas for improvement.

Initial experience suggests that the PCRS is a user-friendly self-assessment tool that primary care teams can use to assess their current capacity to support and implement consistent patient-centered self management. The initial evaluation indicates that the PCRS has acceptable psychometric properties and is applicable across different types of primary care teams and chronic illness conditions.