Diabetes Clinical Improvement Team Final Report

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that helps convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. Diabetes can lead to other health problems such as heart disease, kidney disease, blindness and poor circulation, which may lead to loss of limbs.

In Washington state, about 444,000 people have been diagnosed with diabetes. It is estimated that 160,000 have undiagnosed diabetes, and about 1.4 million people have pre-diabetes (risk factors that may lead to diabetes). Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in Washington.

Report Summary

The Diabetes Clinical Improvement Team, composed of physicians and other providers, consumers, employers, and public health and policy experts, focused its efforts on treatment of adults with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, conducted in physician office settings, with an emphasis on how to reduce risks and how to manage the condition over the long term.

The team recommended 14 performance measures, three of which were developed by the team, that cover 1) how to manage the long-term care of people diagnosed with diabetes (eight measures) and 2) how to reduce risks in patients diagnosed with diabetes (six measures).  The team next focused its attention on the best ways to change the behavior of providers, patients, employers and health plans to achieve best performance on the selected measures and to improve the quality of care received by adults with diabetes. 

The six high-priority strategies recommended by the team were:

1. Promote and support the adoption and use of registries in physician office settings in the five-county region;

2. Encourage health plans and employers to create incentives and eliminate access barriers so that patients and doctors can most effectively manage diabetes; 

3. Promote and support patient self management discussions between doctors and patients in the physician office setting; 

4. Promote patient diabetes education between doctors and patients in clinical care and community settings; 

5. Promote the use of clinical reminders to providers regarding the service needs of individual patients (see recommendation 1, above); and

6. Promote the use of patient appointment reminders sent directly to patients with diabetes. 

This report, along with the Heart Disease Clinical Improvement Team Final Report, was reviewed and endorsed by health care organizations, including medical groups, hospitals, natural medicine providers and many others in the Puget Sound region.

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Alliance Participants: download this report from the secure Participant-only section of this website.

All Others: contact the Alliance and enter "Diabetes Clinical Improvement Team Final Report" in the Comments section of the contact us form.  A .pdf file of this report will be sent via return email.

Other Clinical Improvement Team Reports

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• Depression
• Heart Disease
• Low Back Pain
• Prescription Drugs
• Prevention

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