As the rates of chronic diseases in the United States rise and the number of people living with multiple chronic conditions increases, self-management support (SMS) is increasingly recognized as a fundamental strategy for improving health outcomes, reducing health care utilization, and improving quality of care. Self-management support is defined by the Institute of Medicine as “the systematic provision of education and supportive interventions by health care staff to increase patients’ skills and confidence in managing their health problems, including regular assessments of progress and problems, goal setting, and problem-solving support.”1 As part of its ongoing work to improve primary care practice and care for people living with multiple chronic conditions, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) sponsored the development of 2 SMS resources for primary care clinicians and their teams. The first is a one-stop multimedia library of SMS educational materials and resources, and the second is a series of companion videos that demonstrate SMS skills and concepts and illustrate SMS in action. These robust resources can help health care teams in small and large practices visualize and adopt SMS techniques in practice.
AHRQ’s Self-Management Support Resource Library
The SMS Resource Library contains 39 multimedia and action-oriented educational materials from 21 different sources. It consists of resource guides, articles, toolkits, videos, tip sheets, and tools. Materials are organized using the following framework to allow clinicians to easily identify which materials best suit their needs:
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What is self-management support: Includes resources that define and describe SMS
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Why is self-management support important: Includes success stories from patients, evidence on SMS (eg, peer-reviewed manuscripts), and benefits of implementing SMS
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How to implement self-management support into practice: Includes tools that providers and clinical teams can use with their patients to encourage health-related behavior change
Motivational Videos on Self-Management Support
Three brief videos illuminate SMS skills and concepts, show its use in diverse primary care practices, and feature clinicians who have successfully implemented SMS. The video vignettes demonstrate the core competencies of SMS for clinicians, as defined by the New Health Partnerships. These competencies are: Emphasize Patient Role; Build Relationships; Include Family; Share Information; Collaborate on Agenda Setting, Goals, and Action Plans; Problem Solving; and Follow Up.2
More information about implementing self-management support in primary care settings is available on AHRQ’s Improving Primary Care Practice web pages. The AHRQ SMS Resource Library, including access to the SMS tools and videos is available at: http://www.orau.gov/ahrq/sms_home.html.
- © 2014 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
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