Joslin Diabetes Center Partners with Phytel on CME Research Project

Phytel, the leader in physician-led population health improvement, and the Joslin Diabetes Center, a Harvard Medical School affiliate in the forefront of the fight against diabetes, recently announced their collaboration on a landmark research initiative to compare the accuracy and predictive value of current assessment methodologies for continuing medical education (CME) programs. The results will be used to inform ongoing efforts to improve diabetes care.

The study will compare four methods of evaluating educational outcomes in diabetes care: physician self-reports, competency assessments based on case studies, examination of a sample of patient charts, and data drawn from Phytel clients’ electronic registries, which cover all of a practice’s patients with diabetes.

Joslin chose Phytel as its partner in this study because of Phytel’s large customer base and its ability to provide population-wide data. Hundreds of physician groups and healthcare systems that collectively care for over 20 million patients use Phytel’s patient outreach, care management, patient engagement, transitions of care, and analytics solutions in population health management.

Joslin and Phytel expect the study to commence in April or May and to be completed by the end of the year.

“Joslin’s grant requires our researchers to explore the most effective methods of verifying outcomes of educational interventions to further the adoption of best practices in diabetes care,” noted Julie Brown, CCMEP, director of professional education, Joslin Diabetes Center. “Phytel’s expertise in population health management and its comprehensive database will enable Joslin to make valid comparisons among different methods of assessing performance and patient level outcomes relative to educational and non-educational interventions.”

About Phytel
The premier company empowering  physician-led population health improvement, Phytel provides physicians with proven technology to deliver timely, coordinated care to their patients. Phytel’s state-of-the-art registry, which now encompasses 20 million patients nationwide, uses evidence-based chronic and preventive care protocols to identify and notify patients due for service, while tracking compliance and measuring quality and financial results. For more information, please visit www.phytel.com. Follow on Twitter and on Facebook.

About Joslin Diabetes Center
Joslin Diabetes Center, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the world’s largest diabetes research and clinical care organization. Joslin is dedicated to ensuring that people with diabetes live long, healthy lives and offers real hope and progress toward diabetes prevention and a cure. Joslin is an independent, nonprofit institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School. The Joslin Diabetes Center Professional Education Department has been nationally accredited since 1995 and was awarded Accreditation with Commendation in 2006 by the ACCME, the highest level available. The department is focused on performance improvement and supports quality diabetes practice for over 40,000 primary care practitioners annually. Please join us this fall in Washington DC at Joslin’s first ever major national convening event, Diabetes Innovation 2012. ( www.diabetesinnovation.org). For more information, visit  www.joslin.org.