A quality improvement tool to assess self-management support in primary care.

BACKGROUND: Self management is an essential, central component of effective care for diabetes and other chronic illnesses, yet very few instruments exist to assess delivery or consistency of self-management support. The Assessment of Primary Care Resources and Supports for Chronic Disease Self-Management (PCRS) tool assesses both organizational infrastructure and delivery of self-management support services.
METHODS: The PCRS was developed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Diabetes Initiative and underwent several stages of development, including three pilot tests, review by experts, and implementation by a national quality improvement (QI) program.
RESULTS: The development and testing of the instrument resulted in the current 16-item measure. Use of the PCRS in a QI collaborative with 20 diverse health care teams across the United States demonstrated that the instrument is helpful in assessing areas for improvement. DISCUSSION: Initial experience suggests that the PCRS is a user-friendly self-assessment tool that primary care teams can use to assess their current capacity to support and implement consistent patient-centered self management. The initial evaluation indicates that the PCRS has acceptable psychometric properties and is applicable across different types of primary care teams and chronic illness conditions.