INTRODUCTION TO IHRMA

The major healthcare issues facing many, if not most, countries as we move into the twenty-first century is chronic disease plus the erosion of personal lifestyles that threatens to create a second wave of chronic disease for decades to come. As evidenced by Warren Todd, 1st published author on disease management, founder of both the Disease Management Association of American and the International Disease Management Alliance plus initiator of DM associations in Australia, Germany, and Japan, the huge economic burden of chronic disease and aging is now “at our doorstep” with the coming generation of overweight/unfit citizens threatening to extend the crisis into future decades of this new century. (Disease of lifestyle)

The World Health Organisation, long an avid supporter of programs to stamp out communicable disease, has now identified chronic disease as the “next epidemic of the twenty-first century. Projection suggests that the global burden of chronic disease will grow from 27% of the total cost of healthcare to 43% in the next two decades.

Compounding the dual crisis of aging/obesity is that our current healthcare systems were designed to primarily address acute medicine, not chronic disease. A well-known report published by the Institutes of Medicine in the United States dramatically documents this crisis in our infrastructure. This problem is not restricted to the United States and is really a problem in most countries in the world today.

Disease Management has evolved to help address this problem. Originating in the United States in the late 80’s/early 90’s, disease management is now being adopted by both private and public sectors of healthcare systems around the world. We are now entering the new World of Health Risk management around the world which is evolving from Disease management.

In addition to the recent adoption of disease management by the public sector [Medicare and Medicaid] in the United States, Australia has also “mainstreamed” disease management into their public programs, Japan has announced a plan to include disease management into their major 2006 healthcare reform movement, the National Health Service of the United Kingdom is piloting DM programs and more than 15 other countries around the world are experimenting with disease management in one form or another and now looking to Health Risk management.

CATALYST FOR CHANGE

Following the success of the Disease Management Association of America, it is believed that a new multi-disciplinary association should be formed to serve as a catalyst for change in the re-engineering of the Many International Healthcare System and their risk management methodologies. Specifically, the proposed new association(IHRMA) would be chartered to achieve the following goals:

• Facilitate the design, development, and implementation of both disease management and health management [prevention] programs to help minimise the immediate social and economic burden of chronic disease and unhealthy lifestyles. As evidenced by the experience in the United States, first generation disease management programs have produced significant clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes. Now it is the time of Health risk management the next generation of managing healthcare costs.

• Serve as repository/clearinghouse for the experience and outcomes performance of new Health risk management initiatives for the purpose of continuous process improvement.

• Provide the educational resources needed to insure that Health risk management and health management programs around the world will be based on the best “learning’s” from health risk programs around the world. (Doctors, providers, funders, EAP, Insurance companies, M.C.O. and administrators.)

• Develop the research projects needed to maximise our knowledge of how these programs work and increased the effectiveness of these programs in the future.
• Provide advocacy support for changing health policy and reimbursement to encourage better ways to provide the integrated care needed to better manage chronic disease.