Parkinson Disease Care Management Simplified: a positive randomized trial using the SDMM

We’re happy to report another major application of the 4-domain Siebens Domain Management Model (SDMM). Karen I Connor RN PhD MBA and her colleagues conducted a randomized trial of a proactive nurse-led care management intervention to improve Parkinson disease care (Care Coordination for Health Promotion and Activities in Parkinson’s Disease or CHAPS). The study took place in five Veteran Affairs sites in the southwest United States. Results just out this year demonstrated that care did improve (Connor 2019, Calabresi 2019). One clinical outcome, symptoms of depression, was better as well.

What’s exciting is that these researchers chose the 4-domain Siebens Domain Management Model (SDMM) to organize the 31 different types of standard PD problems/topics that were identified in each participant’s standardized assessment.

The team also chose to have the nurse care managers send each participant a personalized Siebens Health Care Notebook (now called the Notebook for Wellbeing & Health Care) containing their CHAPS assessment and tailored education sheets. The Notebook served as a self-management tool and as a single place for keeping key health information.

More details on these processes have been submitted for publication. Stay tuned.

So now the SDMM has been proven to:

  • improve communication of complex care in multiple ways:

    • physician documentation

    • nurse care manager documentation

    • rehabilitation team conferences

    • organizing physical and occupational therapy activities in research

  • contribute to improving care quality and

  • improve clinical outcomes in the rehabilitation setting (see prior Blog, Team Meetings: What If Everyone Gets A Voice?).

The evidence is now here that the SDMM is a simple, teachable person/patient-centered framework, usable by multiple disciplines and that has real benefits in busy clinical care.  

Connor KI, Cheng EM, Barry F, Siebens HC, Lee ML, Ganz DA, Mittman BS, Connor MK, Edwards LK, McGowan MG, Vickrey BG. Randomized trial of care management to improve Parkinson disease care quality. Neurology 2019;92:e1831-e1842.

Calabresi P, Nigro P, Schwarz HB. A nurse-led model increases quality of care in Parkinson disease. Neurology 2019;92:1-2.

Hilary Siebens