> Resources and Publications > PHC RIS infonet > October 2008 > Chronic disease management

Chronic disease management:
Looking through the lens at diabetes and depression

The Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute (APHCRI) has awarded a Stream Ten travelling fellowship to Professor James Dunbar and Professor Prasuna Reddy of the Greater Green Triangle University Department of Rural Health (GGT UDRH) for a project titled Chronic disease management models as examples of organisational development approaches in primary care.

They will travel to centres in the USA during October this year to follow up earlier work that used chronic disease management as the lens through which the contribution of organisational development to leadership, teamwork, culture and collaboration was studied; for this new project, the lens will be chronic disease management of diabetes and depression.

The aim of the project is to understand the components of the world's best chronic disease management programs for depression and diabetes, and the contribution of organisational development to them.

In relation to the purpose for the study, Professor Dunbar says that “As we got further into the Stream Six work, we realised more and more that chronic disease management was the greatest challenge for healthcare everywhere. Although the United States as a health system has its shortcomings, some health providers and teams have the best chronic disease management systems in the world. In the Stream Six project, we used narrative meta-analysis and now we would like to follow the story further by looking at two quite different, world leading areas of work: the IMPACT model for collaborative care of depression, and US work with diabetes. Both have links to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and its special interest in implementation. RAND Corporation is almost a by-word for evaluation in disease management. We shall also be visiting the McClellend Institute, which is a leading centre for research into Organisational Development. We will be talking to leading experts and preparing a report for the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute and government policy makers.”

David Mernagh
Office Administrator
Greater Health
E: David.Mernagh@greaterhealth.org
W: www.greaterhealth.org/