Care Continuum Alliance Publishes Fifth Volume of Industry Consensus Standards for Measuring Outcomes

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Care Continuum Alliance today published a fifth volume of its industry consensus guidelines for measuring wellness and care management outcomes, including expanded content on medication adherence and health IT.

The Outcomes Guidelines Report Volume 5, released at the organization's annual meeting, in Washington, D.C., represents the latest product of a research initiative launched in 2006 to bring consensus, transparency and sound science to measuring clinical and financial outcomes in wellness and care management. It refines earlier work and adds new guidance on more broadly defined population health management programs.

"Chronic condition prevention and care strategies have evolved significantly and continue to improve through innovation and new technologies," Care Continuum Alliance President and CEO Tracey Moorhead said. "Our guidelines keep pace with that change and remain the industry standard for evaluating program performance."

The new guidelines introduce a framework for health information technology (HIT), defining key components necessary for a fully connected population health management program. Volume 5 also introduces a checklist and flowchart to determine whether a program should be evaluated as a wellness, population health or disease management program.

"With each new version, the guidelines increase their utility and relevancy to the broad variety of programs available," Moorhead said. "With health care reform and federal HIT initiatives demanding increased quality and accountability, the guidelines make a valuable contribution to understanding the best approaches to care."

As it did last year, with Volume 4, the Care Continuum Alliance is making this fifth volume of the guidelines freely available as a download from its Web site, www.carecontinuum.org. Volume 5 incorporates all guidance from earlier volumes and provides a "Guidelines Locator" to quickly reference specific recommendations. In other new content, the newest guidelines include a conceptual framework and process framework for population health management, updated recommendations on the criteria used to select participants for chronic condition management programs and proposed organizational best practices for promoting medication adherence.

The Care Continuum Alliance undertook the Outcomes Guidelines project to fill a gap in consistent, evidence-based measures of program performance. Throughout the development process, it has received the support of numerous internal and external stakeholders and nationally recognized quality improvement groups, such as the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

"The guidelines represent the work of some of the best minds in program evaluation," Moorhead said. "This is critically important expertise to have as we look to new models of care and seek to determine what care strategies provide the best quality and value."

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About the Care Continuum Alliance

The Care Continuum Alliance convenes all stakeholders providing services along the continuum of care for population health improvement, including health and wellness promotion, chronic care management and care coordination. Through advocacy, research and promotion of best practices, the Care Continuum Alliance advances population-based strategies to improve care quality and outcomes and reduce preventable costs for individuals with and at risk of chronic conditions. The Care Continuum Alliance represents more than 200 corporate and individual stakeholders, including wellness and care management organizations, pharmaceutical manufacturers and benefits managers, health information technology and biotechnology innovators, employers, hospitals, physicians, nurses and other health care professionals, and researchers and academics. Learn more at www.carecontinuum.org.