Collaborative Diabetes Care Offers Positive Clinical, Economic Outcomes

Multidisciplinary collaborative care for patients with uncontrolled diabetes offers positive clinical and economic outcomes, suggests a systematic review and meta-analysis published online in The International Journal of Clinical Practice.

The study analyzed data from 16 randomized, controlled studies comparing multidisciplinary care with standard care provided solely by physicians for patients with uncontrolled diabetes. For inclusion, the studies were required to the report at least two of the three outcomes, which included clinical outcomes (Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides), humanistic outcomes, and economic outcomes.

Within 3 to12 months, patients who received multidisciplinary care, demonstrated significant improvement in HbA1c and systolic blood pressure, researchers reported. Patient-reported humanistic outcomes with multidisciplinary collaborative care improved or were maintained over time.

Furthermore, health care use and costs with multidisciplinary collaborative care were comparable to standard physician-only care, the meta-analysis found.

“Multidisciplinary collaborative care appeared to positively impact on the clinical, humanistic, and economic outcomes of patients with uncontrolled diabetes,” researchers concluded. —Jolynn Tumolo