Chronic condition self-management surveillance: what is and what should be measured?

Introduction: The rapid growth in chronic disease prevalence, in particular the prevalence of multiple chronic conditions, poses a significant and increasing burden on the health of Americans. Maximizing the use of proven self-management (SM) strategies is a core goal of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Yet, there is no systematic way to assess how much SM or self-management support (SMS) is occurring in the United States.

Consumers and families as partners in implementing evidence-based practice.

Evidence-based practices represent an extremely important advance in the mental health system, and NAMI continues its support of efforts to develop and implement these interventions. Moving forward, the authors envision consumers and family members playing a much greater role in developing and promulgating EBP. Individually and corporately, consumers can: facilitate research that will expedite equitable implementation of existing and new EBPs; play a significant role in providing services; play a lead role in promoting policies that support EBP implementation through the development and use of advocacy toolkits; influence provider adaptation of EBP through the broad development and testing of resources that urge EBP consumerism; and, advance through the monitoring of EBP.