Diabetes mgmt improves care, not outcomes

Reminding diabetic patients to come in for foot and retinal exams gets them into the office all right, but standard diabetes disease-management strategies don't seem to do much for controlling key factors like blood sugar, blood pressure or cholesterol, or for getting patients to take their medications properly, according to a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers from the UCLA School of Public Health studied 8,661 patients from 63 physician groups in several health plans. They looked at the use of three disease management strategies: physician reminders, regular feedback from physician groups to their doctors on the care they provide; and structured care management, where patients see case managers and attend diabetes education classes. The authors said that disease-management programs have focused so far on improving processes, and now they have to start focusing on outcomes.

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