Slide Presentation of the 2007 Annual Meeting of AHRQ

Improving Diabetes Care in Communities (continued)

• What have we learned?
  • Diabetes is good "tracer condition" to use in figuring our how to improve care for chronic illness at the community level
  • Health care purchasers can play a stimulating and supporting role for providers. They can also directly implement improved patient/consumer information and payment policy changes
  • Data play an essential role in identifying productive projects worth the effort of multiple stakeholders
  • New data are needed to support new processes of care, new payment policies, and evaluation of results
  • AHRQ plays an important role in improving the credibility of local initiatives, guiding work with research-based information and in developing practical tools for use by multiple stakeholders