Controlled trial of a multifaceted intervention for improving quality of care for rural patients with type 2 diabetes

OBJECTIVE - Despite good evidence and clinical practice guidelines, studies document that treatment of type 2 diabetes is less than optimal. Lack of resources or limited access may put patients in rural communities at particular risk for suboptimal care. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - We conducted a prospective, before/after study with concurrent controls to assess the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary diabetes outreach service (intervention) for improving the quality of care for rural patients with type 2 diabetes. Our intervention consisted of six monthly visits by a traveling team of specialist physicians, nurses, dieticians, and a pharmacist. The core of this service was specialist-to-rural primary care physician academic group detailing. Two comparable regions in Northern Alberta were randomly allocated to control or intervention. Data were collected before and 6 months after % improve intervention in a representative volunteer sample. The primary outcome was a 10 ment in any one of the following: blood pressure, total cholesterol, or HbA(1c). RESULTS - Our analysis included 200 intervention and 179 control subjects; 14 subjects were at all three primary outcome targets at baseline. The intervention was associated with a trend toward improvement in primary outcome at 6 months (44% intervention vs. 37% control; odds ratio 1.32, 95% CI 0.87-1.99). The intervention was associated with a significant improvement in blood pressure (42% intervention vs. 25% control, P = 0.004); however, there were only small, nonsignificant changes in cholesterol or HbA(1c). The intervention was associated with a significant increase in satisfaction with diabetes care. Multivariate adjustment for baseline differences between intervention and control subjects did not affect any of the main results. CONCLUSIONS - A diabetes outreach service has the potential to improve the quality of diabetes care for rural patients. Future Studies need to involve longer timelines and larger sample sizes.