TITLE:
Improving Diabetes Care by Data Feedback and Diabetes Templates
AUTHORS:
Charles M. Sow, Folashade S. Omole, Gregory Strayhorn, Dominic Mack, William A. Davis, Olabisi Omole
KEYWORDS:
Electronic Health Records, Diabetes Registry, Data Feedback
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Preventive Medicine,
Vol.4 No.11,
November
13,
2014
ABSTRACT: Importance: Health information technology has been used to improve diabetes care and outcomes. With the implementation of our diabetes registry, we discovered several flaws in the data. Objective: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate whether improving diabetes templates in electronic medical records associated with data feedback, improves process and quality outcomes for patients with diabetes. Methods: We redesigned our chronic diseases templates and clinical flow, built a diabetes registry and used the data for feedback to educate providers, staff and address inconsistencies. A total of 724 active diabetic patients were identified in October 2009 (pre-implementation) and 731 active diabetic patients were identified in June 2011 (post-implementation). Results: The results showed an improvement in the process outcomes of ordering hemoglobin A1C every 6 months and a microalbumin every 12 months (p-value 0.05). Discussion: Data feedback and lessons learned were instrumental to our practice change.