In the frame of joint action in chronic diseases (JA CHRODIS), an extensive process at the European Union level was carried out to identify a core set of quality criteria and to formulate recommendations that improved prevention, early detection, and quality of care for people with chronic diseases. Diabetes was used as a model disease. The core set of quality criteria may be applied to develop and improve practices, programs, strategies, and policies in various domains (e.g., prevention, care, health promotion, education, and training). The quality criteria are general enough to be applied in countries with different political, administrative, social, and health care organizations. Moreover, they can be applied to a number of other chronic diseases. JA CHRODIS recommendations and quality criteria are being tested in a series of pilot actions within the JA CHRODIS PLUS. A total of 15 partners representing nine European countries worked together to implement pilot actions and generate practical lessons that could contribute to the further uptake and use of JA CHRODIS recommendations. Special emphasis is given to meaningful patient involvement in co-designing the pilot actions and to the sustainability and scalability of the pilot actions. These insights were found to be at the core of the learning from pilot actions to foster high quality care for people with chronic diseases.
Keywords: chronic diseases; co-design of practices; meaningful patient involvement; quality of care; scalability; sustainability.