Over the past 5-10 years, there have been substantial improvements in the processes of diabetes medical care (e.g., checking laboratory tests at indicated intervals) but less dramatic improvements in intermediate outcomes (e.g., value of blood pressure or glycemic control). Further, although quality measurement in diabetes has advanced beyond that of other conditions, several challenges remain in developing effective quality measures. These include constructing measures designed to improve metabolic, lipid and blood pressure control, appropriately aggregating measures in summary scores, assessing interpersonal care, and evaluating what is needed for different levels of profiling (e.g., individual provider versus health plan versus facility or medical group). Therefore, the Michigan Diabetes Research & Training Center's (MDRTC) Measurement Core, the National Diabetes Quality Improvement Alliance and the VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative for Diabetes (QUERI-DM) proposes organizing a national multidisciplinary conference on diabetes quality measurement, to be held in Ann Arbor, MI in the spring of 2006. Conference objectives are to 1) Bring together scientific and clinical experts in the field of diabetes and quality measurement; 2) Review the state-of-the-art in diabetes epidemiology and quality measurement science; 3) Plan essential research for improving technical and interpersonal quality measurement; 4) Provide recommendations to the National Diabetes Quality Improvement Alliance regarding new measures of technical and interpersonal quality (or refinements of current measures), methods for weighting and aggregating measures, and considerations in profiling at individual and group levels; and 5) Disseminate conference conclusions through publications, presentations, and policy reports. The conference will build upon the mission and working relationships already established through the National Diabetes Quality Improvement Alliance, expand the discussion by addressing recent research and clinical findings and issues of measurement science, and focus on developing and testing new measures designed to further improve diabetes outcomes. By bringing key investigators and stakeholders together to discuss and plan issues surrounding diabetes technical and interpersonal quality measurement, our intent is to help set the measurement agenda for the next decade, with future research and policy work continuing well beyond the conference.
