SHARED MEDICAL APPOINTMENTS/GROUP VISITS FOR DIABETES

Management complexity and the high prevalence of diabetes have prompted efforts to improve patient care efficiency. One method of system redesign based on the chronic care model is the Shared Medical Appointment (SMA) in which groups of patients (8–20) are seen by an inter-professional team in a 1–2 hour appointment. In a primary care clinic at a tertiary care academic medical centre, SMAs targeted patients at particularly high cardiovascular risk: A1c >9%, systolic blood pressure (SBP) >160 mmHg and/or LDL-c >130 mg/dl. Levels of A1c, LDL-c and SBP all fell significantly post-intervention and the reductions in A1c and SBP were significantly greater among SMA participants compared with control patients. The improvements from this …