The Elusive Benefits of Chronic Care Management

March 14, 2011
Archives of Internal Medicine , Vol. 171, No. 5
Jill Bernstein

Improving quality and controlling costs through better management of serious chronic conditions is a critically important goal of U.S. health care reform. However, a range of studies—including one by Chad Boult and colleagues in the March 14 edition of Archives of Internal Medicine—have found that carefully designed programs implementing best practices for patients with serious multiple chronic conditions show only limited success. In an invited commentary in the same edition of Archives, Jill Bernstein, Ph.D., HSC senior health policy analyst, stresses that it may be difficult to identify clear benefits from methodologically rigorous clinical trials, and that research should focus on integrating what has been learned into research syntheses, pilot studies and larger demonstrations that can guide system-wide improvements in chronic care management.

This article is available available at the Archives of Internal Medicine Web site. (Subscription required.)