Effects of an enhanced primary care program on diabetes outcomes

To evaluate the effectiveness of Buena Salud, a multidisciplinary enhanced primary care program for Medicaid Managed Care patients at a community health center serving a low-income Hispanic community.

Controlled before-and-after observational study.

We extracted data from the electronic health record for patients aged 18 to 64 years with a) type 2 diabetes (T2D) enrolled in the Buena Salud program between August 2011 and January 2012 and b) randomly selected control patients with T2D who had been seen at the study health center during the same time frame. Outcomes included process measures (eg, number of glycosylated hemoglobin measures in a year), target lab and blood pressure values, and utilization measures (eg, emergency department visits). Demographics and other potential confounders were also extracted. We used a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis to estimate the effect of the intervention.

A total of 72 Buena Salud patients with T2D and 247 control patients with T2D were included in the analysis. The Buena Salud group had a greater increase in the percentage of patients with guideline-concordant measurement of microalbumin/creatinine (DID = 22.2%; P = .008), a trend toward fewer hospitalizations than controls, and a mean rise in diastolic blood pressure. We did not find differences in other outcome or utilization measures.

A recently implemented enhanced primary care program had minimal impact on T2D process, outcome, and utilization measures for patients in this study. However, there were some promising trends, and it is possible that the intervention may demonstrate more of an effect as the program matures.