Joslyn Levy & Associates, LLC

In 2007, the New York Health Foundation (NYHealth) funded 12 grantees through the request for proposals (RFP), Setting the Standard: Advancing Best Practices in Diabetes Management.

The goal of Setting the Standard was to move New York State’s primary care system to adopt and spread best practices in disease management and establish them as the universal standard of care for patients with diabetes. The Chronic Care Model—a highly respected and accepted framework for approaching the improvements sought through this initiative—was a major reference point in the RFP. In 2010, NYHealth funded Joslyn Levy & Associates, LLC, to assess the outcomes of 10 of the 12 grantees funded under the RFP. Joslyn Levy worked in collaboration with Patricia Patrizi of Patrizi Associates to study the projects and produce a final evaluation report.

Specifically, Setting the Standard was designed to support health care providers in an effort to expand the capacity of health systems to spread and sustain best practices in diabetes care, like the Chronic Care Model; and inform policy to support these improvements. These organizations are located throughout New York State and serve populations that have been hardest hit by diabetes (Asian, Native American, African-American, and Latino communities), as well as populations with co-occurring conditions, such as mental illness. The evaluators will undertake the following activities:

1. assess and document the impact of the 12 funded programs in improving the clinical outcomes for people with diabetes;
2. determine the progress in implementing sustainable organizational (system-level) changes to establish and/or expand diabetes care management across the 12 organizations; and
3. identify the challenges and facilitators to the successful spread of programs.