Diabetes Care Quality Improvement Workbook and Resource Guide

What Do These Tools Do?

State leaders can use these tools to assess and design their diabetes care quality improvement initiatives. These tools will help State leaders:

• Assess the quality of diabetes care in their States.
• Pinpoint statewide diabetes care quality weaknesses to better target improvement initiatives.
• Design strategies customized to their specific needs.

What Can These Tools Tell States About Their Performance?

The Diabetes Care Quality Improvement Workbook and Resource Guide assist State leaders and government officials in their efforts to improve diabetes care quality. The tools can be used to assess the current status of their State's diabetes care programs, create new diabetes quality improvement programs, and build on existing programs.

The tools can also help State officials and senior leaders track progress on diabetes care quality improvement initiatives.

Who Should Use These Tools?

Using these tools will require collaboration among experts, such as:

• State health department officials and executive branch officials, including State health departments, Medicaid officials, benefit managers for State employees, and staff specialists.
• Senior leaders, including State governors and legislators.
• Nongovernmental State and local health care leaders (professional societies, provider associations, hospital associations, quality improvement organizations, voluntary health organizations, health plans, business coalitions, community organizations, and consumer groups).

How Do These Tools Work?

The tools are written exercises available on the Web. They are designed to be completed by a team and are organized around six modules:

1. Making the case for diabetes care quality improvement (senior leaders).
2. Understanding the foundation of quality improvement (staff specialists).
3. Interpreting State estimates of diabetes quality (staff specialists).
4. Learning from activities currently underway (senior leaders).
5. Developing a strategy for quality improvement (staff specialists).
6. Promoting quality improvement in the States (senior leaders).

What Data Sources Are Used?

The data contained within the resource guide are taken from the "2003 National Healthcare Quality Report." Users can easily update these data by using the State Snapshots, available at http://statesnapshots.ahrq.gov/snaps10/, which are based on the NHQR and also include a conservative estimate of excess costs associated with poor diabetes care.

What Do States Have To Say?

"AHRQ's document was pivotal in two ways. First, it provided a source of background data, and second, it provided formulas for calculating the direct and indirect costs of diabetes. These data and analyses were included in the Alaska Diabetes Strategic Plan for 2010." Barbara Stillwater, Ph.D., R.N., Alaska Division of Public Health and Alaska Medicaid