This workbook is a learning tool for all State officials who want to improve the quality of health care. In conjunction with the Resource Guide, which uses State-level data on diabetes care from the 2003 National Healthcare Quality Report, this workbook is designed to help States assess the quality of care in their States and fashion quality improvement strategies suited to State conditions.

This workbook takes users through a series of written exercises that will help them begin to think about an effective partnership for an initiative, assembly of available data for their State, questions to raise about interpretation of the data, and quality improvement techniques to enlist to develop a strategy to improve diabetes care quality. The modules presented include:

• Module 1: Background - Making the case for diabetes care quality improvement
• Module 2: Data - Understanding the foundation of quality improvement
• Module 3: Information - Interpreting State estimates of diabetes quality
• Module 4: Action - Learning from activities currently underway
• Module 5: Improvement - Developing a strategy for diabetes quality improvement
• Module 6: The way forward - Promoting quality improvement in the States