Pre-Visit Prioritization for Complex Primary Care Patients with Diabetes

Patients with type 2 diabetes are increasingly living with multiple concurrent conditions and complicated medical regimens. For these patients, diabetes management decisions and treatment goals must be addressed within the larger context of other competing health concerns. In parallel, clinical advances have led to a substantial increase in the number of tasks that primary care providers must perform during each visit. These twin trends present a formidable challenge to effective diabetes primary care. This study addresses the hypothesis that among complex patients not meeting diabetes management goals, an approach to help patients explicitly prioritize all health issues (both related and unrelated to diabetes) prior to each primary care visit will result in more effective diabetes management over time. To test this hypothesis, the project will involve design, implementation, and evaluation of a web-based tool linked to electronic health records that will enable complex patients to easily define care priorities from an inclusive list.

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