Project Overview

The goals of the Diabetes Quality Improvement Project are to:

• Improve the quality of care provided to diverse patient populations with diabetes
• Encourage early identification and management of diabetes and prediabetes
• Effectively prevent and manage cardiovascular complications
• Strengthen the capacity of patients to manage their diabetes and prevent cardiovascular complications

Project priorities:

Disseminating evidence-based clinical guidelines
The Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease Provider Reference Guide (PRG), 2nd ed., 2011 is a comprehensive, evidenced-based resource containing the latest clinical guidelines on diabetes care and management. 

Developing and offering tools and resources
We offer webinars on topics related to diabetes to help providers better care for their patients with diabetes.  Under development is our Team Care Resource Guide which will include best practices in utilizing medical office staff as key diabetes care team members.  The Team Care Resource Guide will be available in December 2011.  For patient education materials, please visit our Multicultural Patient Education Database to access a wealth of multilingual and multicultural resources. 

Health Plan Partnership
We have developed a Diabetes Quality Collaborative in partnership with three Medi-Cal managed care plans.  The Collaborative will identify common facilitators that lead to optimal patient health and high quality care.  Promising practices in diabetes care will be tested with results shared among Collaborative members.

Improving Medication Adherence
We will convene focus groups among groups of multiethnic patients to determine the barriers and facilitators in improving medication adherence.  We will also conduct assessments among physicians and community pharmacists to learn how these two groups are currently working with one another to improve adherence among patients.