A SYSTEMS-APPROACH TO THE EVALUATION OF A DISEASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The goal of disease management (:DM) is to improve outcomes while opti mizing the overall use of health care resources. However, few publishe d studies have formally evaluated how well a DM program meets that goa l. This paper provides a systems model for evaluating DM programs from the perspective of the health care plan, The proposed evaluation mode l has seven steps: adopting a systems perspective; establishing a fram ework for evaluation; identifying key structures, processes, and outco mes; developing specific performance measures; collecting, processing, modeling, and analyzing performance measurement data; making comparis ons to criteria, standards, and goals; and, finally, conducting a form al evaluation of how well the DM program has met its objectives.