Does Disease Management Really Work? The Lovelace Health Systems Experience

Abstract

Does disease management really work, or is it just the next "flavor of the year" that will soon disappear? Can disease management be the vehicle to achieve outcome improvements across the entire continuum of care for many disease states? Will disease management become the next "operating system" for health-care organizations throughout the United States? Or will disease management, when combined with the other components of a population health model, be widely adopted by physicians as the core patient management strategy for their practices? These questions summarize one of the most widely debated issues in health care today: Does disease management really deliver, and if it does, is it the answer to many of the problems facing health care today? The answers to these questions will be the subject of this review.