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Select Core Measures
Time to Complete: 1 week
Difficulty: Easy; requires analysis of appropriate measures
Outcome: Defined measures to start your data collection system
Steps
Identify measures
- Identify measures for common conditions, such as diabetes. For diabetes, consider the following: glycemic control; intensive self-management support (diet, exercise, self-monitoring of blood glucose, foot care); cardiac risk reduction (smoking, aspirin, blood pressure, lipids); screening and management of complications (retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy).
- Start with just a few measures. You can add more at a later time, when you have gained more experience with measuring performance.
Define desired outcomes
Set goals. What do you want the outcomes to be? For patients who have diabetes, you may want to consider a goal of improving HbA1c levels or blood pressure, or establishing a plan for self-management goals.
Plan changes
- Start with small changes that will help you accomplish your goals.
- Pilot changes that you plan to make before institutionalizing them in your practice. Doing this will allow you to make adjustments if your idea doesn't work as well as you thought it would.
What You Will Need
Schedule project meetings to discuss which core measures to start your project with. You can add more measures later, once you have gained more experience with measuring performance. Brainstorm what changes you will need to make in your practice to accomplish your goals.
Example
Whether you choose diabetes or other common condition to start out your project, this sample Diabetes Care Flow Sheet will give you an example of how to track your progress. (2-page Word file. About downloading files)
Where to Go for Help
Read FPM's articles "Improving Chronic Disease Care in the Real World: A Step by Step Approach" and "13 Months of Quality Improvement: Did It Work?"
Join a free collaborative online network committed to practice transformation. Learn more about Delta-Exchange.
This Patient-Centered Medical Home section of the AAFP web site was supported in part by a grant from Merck & Co.
This Patient-Centered Medical Home section of the AAFP web site was supported in part by a grant from Merck & Co.
Install a System to Collect Data
