Diabetes Control in a Student-Run Free Clinic During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Chronic Disease Management
• Healthcare Delivery

Background:

• Student-run free health clinics (SRFCs) are vital for vulnerable populations.
• The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated rapid changes in healthcare delivery.
• Chronic disease management, particularly diabetes, faced significant challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the pandemic's impact on diabetes care quality in an SRFC.
• To assess changes in specific diabetes quality measures before and during the pandemic.
• To explore the role of telehealth in maintaining diabetes care continuity.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 29 diabetic patients at MedZou Community Health Center, an SRFC.
• Comparison of six diabetes quality measures (eye exams, BP, A1c, CKD monitoring, flu vaccine, statin therapy) pre-pandemic (in-person) and during pandemic (telehealth).
• Statistical analysis of changes in overall quality measure adherence and individual components.

Main Results:

• Overall diabetes care quality, measured by adherence to quality metrics, decreased by 0.37 per patient post-pandemic.
• A significant decrease in influenza vaccination rates was observed (37.9% pre-pandemic vs. 10.3% during).
• 90% of patients utilized telehealth for diabetes care; no statistically significant differences were found in most individual quality measures, except for flu vaccination.

Conclusions:

• Diabetes care quality experienced a slight decline during the COVID-19 pandemic in this SRFC setting.
• Telehealth proved to be an acceptable and widely adopted method for diabetes management when in-person visits were limited.
• Further research is needed to address the observed decreases in diabetes-related clinical quality measures, especially vaccination rates.