Provision of services in primary care for type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study with patients, GPs, and nurses in the East of England

Successful Change Management Strategies for Improving Diabetes Care Delivery Among High-Performing Practices

PURPOSE

To learn how the highest-performing primary care practices manage change when implementing improvements to diabetes care delivery.

METHODS

We ranked a total of 330 primary care practices submitting practice management assessments and diabetes reports to the Understanding Infrastructure Transformation Effects on Diabetes study in 2017 and 2019 by Optimal Diabetes Care performance. We ranked practices from the top quartile by greatest annual improvement to capture dynamic change. Starting with the top performers, we interviewed practice leaders to identify their most effective strategies for managing change. Interview transcripts were qualitatively analyzed to identify change management strategies. Saturation occurred when no new strategies were identified over 2 consecutive interviews.

RESULTS

Ten of the top 13 practices agreed to interviews. We identified 199 key comments representing 48 key care management concepts. We also categorized concepts into 6 care management themes and 37 strategic approaches. We categorized strategic approaches into 13 distinct change management strategies. The most common strategies identified were (1) standardizing the care process, (2) performance awareness, (3) enhancing care teams, (4) health care organization participation, (5) improving reporting systems, (6) engaging staff and clinicians, (7) accountability for tasks, (8) engaging leadership, and (9) tracking change. Care management themes identified by most practices included proactive care, improving patient relationships, and previsit planning.

CONCLUSIONS

Top-performing primary care practices identify a similar group of strategies as important for managing change during quality improvement activities. Practices involved in diabetes improvement activities, and perhaps other chronic conditions, should consider adopting these change management strategies.

Is mental health co-morbidity an influencing factor in the health service utilisation of women with diabetes mellitus?

Diabetes Mellitus, affecting nearly half a billion people worldwide, is a substantial global public health issue. Although diabetes predominantly affects men, women with diabetes have specific risks and self-management characteristics. Women have a higher risk of either presenting with or developing depression or anxiety, as well as being high users of complementary medicine which can create clinical governance issues. In spite of these known gender differences, limited research has explored gender-specific diabetes care, especially health service use patterns. As increasing attention has turned to supporting people with diabetes to successfully self-manage their diabetes, it is important that we understand how women with diabetes are using health services, and if their specific risk profile is influencing their health care choices. Our study sought to examine the relationship between mental health status and the patterns of conventional and complementary medicine health service use by women diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Our results showed that women with diabetes and any mental health co-morbidity were more likely to visit their general practitioner more frequently or use herbal medicine than those without a mental health co-morbidity. Women with depression and anxiety were also less likely to consult a physiotherapist and those with anxiety less likely to consult a podiatrist over time when compared to the other mental health groups.

Characterisation of type 2 diabetes subgroups and their association with ethnicity and clinical outcomes: a UK real-world data study using the East London Database

BACKGROUND

Subgroups of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) have been well characterised in experimental studies. It is unclear, however, whether the same approaches can be used to characterise T2DM subgroups in UK primary care populations and their associations with clinical outcomes.

AIM

To derive T2DM subgroups using primary care data from a multi-ethnic population, evaluate associations with glycaemic control, treatment initiation, and vascular outcomes, and to understand how these vary by ethnicity.

DESIGN AND SETTING

An observational cohort study in the East London Primary Care Database from 2008 to 2018.

METHOD

Latent-class analysis using age, sex, glycated haemoglobin, and body mass index at diagnosis was used to derive T2DM subgroups in white, South Asian, and black groups. Time to treatment initiation and vascular outcomes were estimated using multivariable Cox-proportional hazards regression.

RESULTS

In total, 31 931 adults with T2DM were included: 47% South Asian (n = 14 884), 26% white (n = 8154), 20% black (n = 6423). Two previously described subgroups were replicated, 'mild age-related diabetes' (MARD) and 'mild obesity-related diabetes' (MOD), and a third was characterised 'severe hyperglycaemic diabetes' (SHD). Compared with MARD, SHD had the poorest long-term glycaemic control, fastest initiation of antidiabetic treatment (hazard ratio [HR] 2.02, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.76 to 2.32), and highest risk of microvascular complications (HR 1.38, 95% CI = 1.28 to 1.49). MOD had the highest risk of macrovascular complications (HR 1.50, 95% CI = 1.23 to 1.82). Subgroup differences in treatment initiation were most pronounced for the white group, and vascular complications for the black group.

CONCLUSION

Clinically useful T2DM subgroups, identified at diagnosis, can be generated in routine real-world multi-ethnic populations, and may offer a pragmatic means to develop stratified primary care pathways and improve healthcare resource allocation.

Long-Term patterns of cancer incidence among patients with and without type 2 diabetes in the United Kingdom

AIMS

Studies using contemporary cohorts are needed to assess the association between type 2 diabetes and cancer.

METHODS

Using the United Kingdom Clinical Practice Research Datalink, we matched patients with type 2 diabetes between 1988 and 2019 to patients without type 2 diabetes. Poisson regression models were fit to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for cancer. In secondary analyses, we determined whether the strength of the association varied with calendar time and whether patients with type 2 diabetes had a higher incidence of being diagnosed with multiple cancers during the follow-up period.

RESULTS

890,214 patients with type 2 diabetes were matched to an equal number of patients without type 2 diabetes. Patients with type 2 diabetes had a higher cancer incidence than patients without type 2 diabetes (IRR 1.19, 95% CI 1.18-1.21). The IRR was higher 2010 onwards (IRR: 1.25, 95% CI: 1.23-1.28) compared with the association in previous years. Overall, patients with type 2 diabetes had a 5% higher incidence of being diagnosed with multiple cancers (IRR: 1.05, 95% CI: 1.04-1.07).

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this large population-based study indicate that type 2 diabetes is associated with an increased risk of several cancers.

Primary care service utilisation and outcomes in type 2 diabetes: a longitudinal cohort analysis

OBJECTIVES

To describe primary care utilisation patterns among adults with type 2 diabetes and to quantify the association between utilisation and long-term health outcomes.

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING

168 primary care practices in Southern England within the Electronic Care and Health Information Analytics database between 2013 and 2020.

PARTICIPANTS

110 240 adults with Quality and Outcomes Framework read code of type 2 diabetes diagnosis; age greater than 18 years; linked and continuous records available from April 2013 until April 2020 (or death). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) Rates of service utilisation (total number of primary care contacts per quarter) across the study period; (2) participant characteristics associated with higher and lower rates of service utilisation; and (3) associations between service utilisation and (A) cardiovascular disease (CVD events) and (B) all-cause mortality.

RESULTS

Mean (SD) number of primary care attendances per quarter in the cohort of 110 240 went from 2.49 (2.01) in 2013 to 2.78 (2.06) in 2020. Patients in the highest usage tertile were more likely to be female, older, more frail, white, from the least deprived quintile and to have five or more comorbidities. In adjusted models, higher rates of service utilisation (per consultation) were associated with higher rates of CVD events (OR 1.0058; 95% CI 1.0053 to 1.0062; p<0.001) and mortality (OR 1.0057; 95% CI 1.0051 to 1.0064; p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

People with type 2 diabetes are using primary care services more frequently, but increased volume of clinical care does not correlate with better outcomes, although this finding may be driven by more unwell patients contacting services more frequently. Further research on the nature and content of contacts is required to understand how to tailor services to deliver effective care to those at greatest risk of complications.