CREcare, LLC was established in
September 2005. Our goal is to assist clients in developing and implementing
programs to measure and monitor clinical outcomes. It is our belief that
quality improvement and organizational financial success are linked. We
provide the tools to measure the relationship between clinical outcomes
and the inputs to care. We also provide services to help clients interpret
data and use this information to guide quality improvement efforts. CREcare
products and services help clients deliver care in an effective and efficient
manner.
Our outcome instruments were developed for use in post-acute care (AM-PAC™),
pediatrics (PEDI™) and community-dwelling elderly
individuals (Late-Life FDI™). Our services
are customized to meet individual client needs.
Challenges
When assessing a particular clinical intervention’s
impact or aggregating clinical outcomes data for quality improvement purposes,
it is important to monitor a patient’s functioning in a precise and accurate
way. Current functional measures are setting or disease-specific, use different
scales and have floor and ceiling effects. Moreover, with traditional measures,
precision can only be achieved by increasing respondent burden.
CREcare Innovations
Over the last 6 years, Drs. Alan Jette and Steve Haley
at Boston University’s Health & Disability Research (HDR) Institute developed
computerized outcome instruments that can be used in post-acute care (AM-PAC-CAT™)
and pediatrics (PEDI-CAT™). These instruments
use computer adaptive testing (CAT) techniques to select questions that
match an individual patient’s functional abilities. In this manner, a precise
estimate of a patient’s function is obtained with a few relevant questions.
Questions are selected from a large group of calibrated test items that
cover a wide range of functional ability —from rolling over in bed to vigorous
activity. As a result, the same test can be used to measure functional outcomes
over time and across the continuum of health care settings.
For additional information, please contact information@crecare.com.