The complexity of care for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: metrics for better understanding chronic disease care.

Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) provide an important opportunity for understanding care of patients with a serious chronic condition.

Objectives: We sought to characterize the complexity of care for patients with RA, including metrics describing the patient, the disease, and use of the health care system across time and place.

Methods: We undertook a prospective cohort study of 568 community-dwelling patients with RA by using observational data from clinically detailed telephone interviews at baseline and 2 years later in addition to medical record abstraction.