What is Disease Management?
Disease management is a multidisciplinary, continuum-based approach to health care delivery that proactively identifies populations with, or at risk for, established medical conditions.
Disease Management:
- Supports the physician/patient relationship and plan of care
- Emphasizes prevention of exacerbations and complications utilizing cost-effective evidence-based practice guideline and patient empowerment strategies such as self-management education
- Continuously evaluates clinical, humanistic, and economic outcomes with the goal of improving overall health
The Disease Management Association of America recommends that all of the following components be in place in order for a program to be considered a disease management program:
- Population Identification Process
- Evidence-Based Practice Guidelines
- Risk identification and matching of interventions with need
- Patient self-management education (may include primary prevention, behavior modification programs, and compliance/surveillance)
- Process and outcomes measurement, evaluation, and management
- Routine reporting/feedback loop (may include communication with patient, physician, health plan and ancillary providers, and practice profiling)
- Appropriate use of information technology (may include specialized software, data registries, automated decision support tools, and call-back systems
Source: The Disease Management Association of America (DMAA)