The promise of disease management meets the challenges of healthcare

Successful disease management requires patients to manage their long-term chronic care by monitoring, which allows care givers to intervene before the disease creates a medical intervention crisis. Since providers can include physicians, nurses, and pharmacy personnel, clinical care coordination and technology have become paramount issues. These two areas are now a major ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) focus.

Four factors influencing this process:

1. Monitoring must be timely and conducted regularly.
2. Monitoring must be comprehensive, covering all necessary vital signs and symptoms that affect a long-term care patient.
3. The data must be shared appropriately with the care team.
4. The data must be meaningful and actionable for the patient.

The absence of any one of these factors can reduce the likelihood of achieving an optimal outcome.

John Hummel
Chief Technology Officer
Perot Systems, Healthcare