Best practices archive

Below is a series of five articles that chronicled a diabetes quality improvement project by the Family Care Network in the state of Washington. The project was part of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) "Breakthrough Series" on chronic disease care — a 13-month quality-improvement initiative that involved about 30 organizations nationwide. Although Family Care Network is not local, their quality improvement initiatives and best practices for improving diabetes care closely mirror suggestions that local DFW physicians provided during PPHP committee meetings. These articles appeared in Family Practice Management, published by the American Academy of Family Physicians from October 1999 through September 2000.

	Improving Chronic Disease Care in the Real World: A Step-by-Step Approach — Brandi White, October 1999.
	Big change starts with small steps. Using a rapid series of "baby steps" to create big improvements in diabetes care.
	Building a Patient Registry From the Ground Up — Brandi White, November/December 1999.
	Building and using a diabetes patient registry to improve diabetes care.
	Helping Patients Take Charge of Their Chronic Illness — Martha M. Funnell, MS, RN, March 2000.
	Physicians know that patient compliance or adherence has a huge impact on successful chronic disease management and clinical outcomes. But how do you attain it? How to render patient non-compliance obsolete.
	Using Flow Sheets to Improve Diabetes Care — Brandi White, June 2000.
	Using flow sheets effectively solves process problems that impede high quality diabetes care.
	Making Diabetes Checkups More Fruitful — Brandi White, September 2000.
	Office systems facilitate pre-planning so the physician, staff and patient are prepared for each office visit. Patient reminders, ordering tests before check ups, annual patient diabetes questionnaires, and other practical tools boost productivity of every checkup.