Abstract
In 2011, the Care Continuum Alliance research agenda worked toward these goals through a variety of initiatives. One highlight from the 2011 research work is the launch of a Care Continuum Alliance and Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) collaboration focused on developing measures and measure standards to help the employer community understand wellness program impact and the value of their health promotion program investments. The project combines the broad perspective of the Care Continuum Alliance Population Health Management and Engagement Measures work groups with the deep employee wellness and health management expertise of the HERO research committee. The initiative, which will complete its work later this year, has identified 6 domains for measures and standards: participation, satisfaction, health impact, financial outcomes, value on investment, and organizational support.
Care Continuum Alliance research initiatives of the past year also reflect a belief that population health management strategies deployed within new service delivery models can benefit from the industry's rich experience and evidence-based strategies and program components. These strategies and program components are identified in the Care Continuum Alliance's Best Practices Framework. 1 The Framework was developed and released in 2010 and outlines the 6 core components of population health. These components include the task of assessing the health of a population, stratifying that population by risk, using that risk stratification to identify individualized engagement strategies, deploying those strategies through a variety of modalities, delivering interventions to the engagement population, and making an overall assessment of the program.
Initiatives that built upon this framework included the Care Continuum Alliance's year-long collaboration with Deloitte on the identification and dissemination of leading practices in engagement strategies currently in use by the industry. 2 In addition, a tool for the development and evaluation of incentives programs was released in January of this year. Two additional efforts in 2011 culminated with the release of tools for the industry, including the expansion of Care Continuum Alliance work on medication adherence and work focused on industry contributions to achieving successful transitions of care. 3 The medication adherence work developed last year included an expansion of the organizational best practices framework with case study examples. In addition, the work included a self-assessment tool that organizations can use to assess existing medication adherence efforts. The Care Continuum Alliance Transitions of Care work resulted in a tool to identify all transitions within a health consumer's life and strategies deployed by population health management service providers to contribute to successful care transitions.
Accountable care organizations received widespread attention in 2011, and the Care Continuum Alliance responded to the need for essential resources with the release of a toolkit and promoted further dialogue through the Accountable Care Symposium, a Forum 11 preconference event. Reflecting the contributions of more than 20 physician leaders and other content experts, Achieving Accountable Care: Essential Population Health Management Tools for ACOs discusses the population health strategies and tools necessary to fully achieve accountable care: population and health assessment through risk stratification; clinical and care management that capitalizes on shared decision making; data “liquidity” and analytics to gain insights from health information technology; and operational management expertise to accept various levels of risk transfer. 4 Symposium faculty comprised prominent collaborative care and population health experts, who presented critical information on federal policy and key considerations for accountable care models.
In 2012, the Care Continuum Alliance will continue its efforts to develop measures and standards for the employer community as part of its collaboration with HERO. To complement this effort, the Care Continuum Alliance has launched the development of a comprehensive measurement guide for population health. This new program measurement guide will focus on guidelines and measures for the evaluation of population health management programs delivered in any health care setting, and will incorporate and expand the scope of Care Continuum Alliance research conducted for its widely recognized Outcomes Guidelines Report. 1 To help stakeholders in new service delivery models evaluate all programs delivered to their populations, the Care Continuum Alliance will design its new guide to address measuring integrated programs and the true value of program investments. The guide will explore new territory, including updated evaluation guidelines that consider return on investment attribution, as well as medical cost savings and program comparison; an expansion of the Care Continuum Alliance's initial medication adherence work to include medication therapy management; measures recommendations for case management programs embedded in an outpatient setting; and special topics that would impact evaluation, such as cancer programs, shared decision making, rare diseases, and depression. The Care Continuum Alliance will present its new guide for the first time at its 2012 annual meeting, The Forum 12, October 17–19, in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Care Continuum Alliance recognizes the valuable opportunities that exist for population health management globally and will greatly expand its international efforts in 2012. It will build on the success of its first International Symposium on Wellness and Chronic Care, held at the 2011 annual meeting, with a second symposium in Atlanta. Like the first symposium, the 2012 event will highlight population health management-related programs deployed on an international level, as well as collaborations between US and international partners. The Care Continuum Alliance also will release a series of global market reports focusing on specific regions or countries. The first, on Brazil, is expected in the first quarter of this year. Last year, the Care Continuum Alliance made an important addition to its portfolio of international outreach efforts: cosponsorship with URAC of the second annual International Health Promotion Awards. The awards, made in early December in Rome, Italy, honored the world's leading workplace and community health promotion programs.
Through its research efforts, the Care Continuum Alliance strives to contribute to the growth and expansion of population health management, regardless of delivery setting. Behind all Care Continuum Alliance research is its members' wealth of experience and expertise in each topic area. All final reports and tools are free and publicly available on the Care Continuum Alliance Web site (