The modified medical office assistant role in rural diabetes care

Diabetes care in Canada is usually provided in family practice offices, which may not have nurses to provide planned, proactive care as recommended by guidelines. The use of medical office assistants (MOAs) to do key tasks in diabetes care may improve the effectiveness of care and reduce costs. We sought to determine whether an expanded MOA role in a rural practice was beneficial to patients and the practice.

We systematically evaluated the provision of diabetes care as measured by key indicators, patient and provider satisfaction, and use of health care services.

Involvement by MOAs improved adherence to selected aspects of guideline-based care, and patient and provider satisfaction was high. The actual outcomes of the surrogate markers measured in care and downstream use of acute care services appeared to be unchanged during this study.

Use of MOAs to help provide team-based diabetes care in family practice resulted in improved performance of key indicators for diabetes care.