Guidance from HEDIS measures along with improvements in clinical care reduced diabetes complications between 1990 and 2010.
Recently, a CDC report on the complications suffered by diabetic patients appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. This report showed a dramatic decrease in complications between 1990 and 2010, most notably a 68 percent decrease in heart attacks and a 64 percent decrease in deaths from hyperglycemic crisis. Other complications including amputations and stroke also decreased. Medical experts point to several important factors as the impetus behind this trend.
First of all, the scientific understanding of diabetes has increased dramatically, with physicians now aware that they need to control lipids and blood pressure much more tightly in their patients. New medications for these purposes have been invaluable and certainly played a significant role in decreasing complications from diabetes.
However, these scientific improvements would not have been so effective without a means of communicating them quickly and uniformly to physicians across the country. This is where HEDIS measures come into play. The National Committee for Quality Assurance creates an updated set of HEDIS measures each year to reflect the latest advances in medicine. These HEDIS measures serve to guide physicians and health plans as to what is considered the current standard of care, and then HEDIS reporting serves to inform the public of how well the health plan performed in providing that standard of care.
The NCQA takes diabetes very seriously and in fact has created a special Diabetes Recognition Program to encourage physicians to improve diabetes care and recognize them for doing so. The program includes 11 HEDIS measures covering areas like:
- HbA1c control
- Blood pressure control
- LDL control
- Eye examinations
- Nephropathy assessment
- Smoking and Tobacco cessation advice or treatment
Physicians must submit charts from 25 diabetic patients in order to be considered for recognition by the NCQA.
Another factor influencing the decrease in complications from diabetes is the advent of Electronic Health Records. EHRs help physicians stay on top of diabetes care by sending automatic reminders for appointments and keeping lists of results for foot checks, blood sugar tests, blood pressure tests, and lipid level tests. Some EHRs even produce charts comparing individual patients against the recommended levels of control to help gauge health care performance.
It’s important to note that the struggle to control diabetes is far from over. While the rate of complications is down for individual patients, the rate of individuals being diagnosed with diabetes is rising. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of diabetics in American more than tripled. It will continue to be important to adhere to HEDIS measures regarding diabetic treatment and measure performance on those measures through accurate HEDIS reporting.
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