Improving the quality of care for people with chronic diseases: translating recommendations to practice

Introduction. Aim of this paper is to present a guide for translating to practice an evidence-based set of Quality Criteria and Recommendations (QCR) to promote the implementation of policies and practices in the field of health promotion, disease prevention and care for people with chronic diseases. Methods. The guide is based on real-world experiences of eight European pilot actions using QCR as a framework for practice design, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. All partners implemented their respective practices by following the same agreed process. Results. The implementation method was summarized in seven steps where each of one outline a particular phase of the process. The guide provides a step-by-step tutorial for the implementation of QCR. Conclusions. Practical experiences from the pilot actions show the potential value of using the QCR in designing and implementing practices to improve the quality of care for people with chronic diseases.