Caring for people with chronic conditions: a health system perspective
The prevalence of chronic disease is likely to grow, particularly in middle income countries, substantially increasing the overall burden of these diseases. This paper emphasises that all countries need to manage healthcare burden better as the potential impact of these diseases on economic growth in these countries is very significant.
The report identifies three key elements that ought to be in place for an effective response to chronic disease. These are sustained financing, skilled and motivated health professionals, and supportive information systems. The report also finds the following:
- new ways of delivering healthcare, involving integration of care providers are required
- more novel and creative approaches to public health will be needed if the societal and cultural factors that underlie most of these diseases are to be to amended
- financial incentives to encourage providers to undertake desirable activities may be effective in improving performance in chronic care
- there is evidence of gains in both quality and safety of care through the deployment of decision support systems
- the private sector, the healthcare system and the individual all have substantial responsibilities to apply scientifically based prevention practices to the growing epidemic of chronic diseases
- investing in staff training will be crucial to the success of any system or programme-level changes in chronic care.
The document strongly recommends undertaking much more research on whether and how far chronic disease management programmes are making a difference to health outcomes. Nevertheless, it underlines that information that goes beyond simple descriptive statistics to including aspects of performance are required for this purpose.
