DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance Research Initiatives

DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance is the leader in population health quality and research. From its ongoing Outcomes Guidelines Report project to initiatives in physician engagement, obesity and other key topics, DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance draws broadly on the expertise of its members and external stakeholders to set the standard for industry guides and other resources. Current projects include:

Consensus Guidelines for Measuring Outcomes

In 2009, DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance produced a fourth volume of its acclaimed Outcomes Guidelines Report, a first-ever, industrywide initiative to establish outcomes measures for population health programs. This work incorporates the recommendations of three previous volumes and adds significant new material, including a definition, framework, basic capabilities and core measures for population health management; additional recommended measures for medication adherence and wellness programs; and special considerations for evaluating mature programs. For the first time, DMAA made the report freely available on its Web site, www.dmaa.org, demonstrating its commitment to best practices and standardization in program evaluation.

Quality Improvement

Measuring and improving quality are integral to the population health improvement model. Population health supports a fully connected health care system that provides the health care team with tools for proactive, coordinated, high-quality care. With that perspective, DMAA launched significant initiatives last year to promote quality improvement across the continuum of care. In 2009, DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance:

• Dedicated programming at its annual meeting to quality improvement, including a keynote by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Director Carolyn Clancy, MD, and a Quality Impact awards presentation.
• Created a Quality in Population Health Improvement Web site to recognize the industry's contributions to improving quality and to provide a single source of DMAA research publications, online tools and other resources for improving care.
• Launched a Quality Improvement Case Studies Registry under the quality site to collect accounts of program successes in a searchable, online database.

Moving Forward

As 2009 came to a close, DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance turned to important new projects, including publication of a second market analysis, a next phase of the Outcomes Guidelines Report and work to update a DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance dictionary of population health management terminology.