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Research-based
clinical priority areas a great opportunity to reach out
with "best practice" interventions
Physicians have always managed their patients'
diseases one on one, and one at a time. But until recently,
there have been only limited efforts to leverage the vast
and growing base of medical knowledge about particular diseases
or conditions by systematically addressing the needs of
entire populations of patients.
Care management programs identify and group
people into disease-specific (such as people with diabetes)
or condition-specific (such as older adults) populations
that we can systematically “reach out to” with appropriate,
evidence-based prevention and health maintenance interventions–
interventions that have been identified through research
as “best practices” for sustaining and improving the health
of a given population.
CMI identifies “the right thing” by synthesizing
information about the best clinical approaches from both
within and outside Kaiser Permanente. We draw on epidemiological
research, outcomes measurement, clinical guideline development,
and care redesign to create evidence-based clinical practice
guidelines and care management programs for selected clinical
priority areas.
These clinical priority areas are strategically
selected because they represent a great opportunity to improve
care for specific populations of members, as well as to
improve cost-effectiveness.
This information is excerpted from Making
the Right Thing Easier to Do, the Care Management Institute's
new information booklet. A printable Adobe Acrobat version
of the booklet is available here.
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