Taking on Diabetes Best Practices Workgroup Conference Call, June 3, 1999

Mission: The Best Practices Workgroup studies, reviews, and sets criteria for reviewing diabetes interventions focusing on issues of the intervention’s success, significance, and replicability.

Duties: AAHP staff facilitates collection of these interventions, while the workgroup develops criteria for selecting best practices. The Workgroup oversees creation of a dissemination vehicle to share its finding with other health plans.

Membership: Membership in the Workgroup includes staff, sponsors and representatives from Taking on Diabetes health plans and ADA members.

Participants

Jill Arent, AAHP

Theresa Bunkers-Lawson, HealthPartners

Harvey Eichner, CAPP Care, Inc.

Peter Fitzgerald, AAHP

Gail Grammatica, Tufts Health Plan

David Gundlach, Priority Health Care Inc.

Cindy Halstenson, HealthPartners

Bryan Luna, Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon

Marian Parrott, ADA

Nandini Deb, Oxford Health Plans

Mary Willey, Grand Valley Health Plan

Jenine Woodward, Advantage Health Plan

Discussion Issue: Searchable Database of Best Practices

As a part of the Taking on Diabetes initiative, AAHP plans to develop a searchable database of both published and unpublished best practice programs in the delivery of health services to people with diabetes. The criteria for inclusion of a best practice will be similar to the criteria for the National Exemplary Practice Award (application attached), and as abstracts are submitted and collected, the Workgroup will be involved in their evaluation before they are included in the database. The Workgroup supported the development of this database, and emphasized that the information contained in it should focus on the delivery of health care services. The database will be searchable by various plan features including model type, size, and location so that interested health plans will be able to identify programs that have been successful in a variety of settings.

The database will initially contain the abstracts of published articles that were developed as a part of the compendium of best practices which is being distributed at the August 1999 Taking on Diabetes: Care in the New Millennium conference. Additional abstracts and program descriptions will supplement this information as they are received, both through health plan submission of programs and through additional literature reviews.

To facilitate submission of best practices by health plans, the database will include an electronic data submission form that will be available on the AAHP website (www.aahp.org). The Workgroup discussed possible features of the submission form that would be most helpful to interested health plans. These include the use of check boxes, menu items, and grid options for categorizing program features. AAHP hopes to make the database and submission form available online by the end of 1999.

Next Steps

AAHP will begin working on the development of the database. A draft of the electronic submission form will be available for Workgroup evaluation at the next meeting of the Workgroup, which will be held Thursday, August 5 during the lunch break of the Taking on Diabetes: Care in the New Millennium conference, in Washington, DC. Details will be provided as the date approaches.