This study examines three process measures of diabetic care and their association with four complications of diabetes - Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), Heart Failure (HF), Stroke and Renal Disease (RD) - in a cohort comprised of hourly and salaried employees of a single large manufacturing company at geographically diverse regions in the United States. Quality of care was measured by adherence to consensus standards for A1C and lipid testing and screening for microalbuminuria. A retrospective cohort study was conducted from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2009 of 1,797 diabetic employees of a US manufacturer who were enrolled in the same health insurance plan. Diabetics who received all three QOCM in the baseline year were compared to diabetics who received less than three QOCM in the baseline year and were analyzed to address their association with the four complications.
Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to assess potential associations between diabetes QOCM and time to complication. Potential confounding risk factors included sex, age, ethnicity, income, marital status, education, smoking, diabetes severity and health comorbidity risk scores.
The overall health benefits for diabetics who received all three QOCM at baseline were noteworthy; they experienced reduced risk for HF (HR 0.39, CI [.19 - .81], p = 0.0117) and RD (HR 0.48, CI [.24 - .95] p = 0.0339) compared to the people who received less than three QOCM. Results suggest that diabetics who received all three QOCM experienced lower complications and is associated with reduced complication risk - regardless of access to care and other factors. These results suggest that any improvement in screening is likely to reduce the risk of diabetes complications. This study contributes to the literature by examining adherence to recommended processes of care and patient complications together. The public health implications of this study can be used to inform the design or revision of disease management programs and process of care measures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-06092011-174348 |
| Date | 22 September 2011 |
| Creators | Bayer, Felicia J |
| Contributors | Bernard D. Goldstein, M.D., Ada O Youk, PhD, Judith R Lave, PhD, Mark R Cullen, M.D., Bruce R Pitt, PhD |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-06092011-174348/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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