title: Effect of a nationwide program of educational outreach visits to improve the processes of care for patients with type 2 diabetes.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To improve processes of ambulatory care for patients with type 2 diabetes in a nationwide program.
  
  
  METHODS
  Interrupted time-series analysis with audits of practice. To implement selected recommendations of national guidelines, educational outreach visits (office visits or phone discussions) were offered to all French physicians who diagnosed one case of type 2 diabetes during a six-month intervention period. Outcome measures were the number of HBA1c measurements recorded monthly in the medical insurance computer database and the proportion of diabetic patients for whom one test had been reimbursed during the previous six months (HBA1c, fasting blood glucose) or previous twelve months (serum cholesterol, serum creatinine, urine microalbumin, electrocardiogram, ophthalmologic examination).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 15,522 office visits and 9,062 telephone discussions were performed among 22,940 physicians. The increase in the monthly proportion of the number of HBA1c tests to the total number of laboratory tests was higher during the intervention period than during the preintervention (p value < .0001) and postintervention periods (p value < .001). Between the first audit (n = 651,574) and the third audit (n = 911,871), HBA1c measurements increased from 41.2% to 60.5% and blood glucose measurements performed alone decreased from 38.8% to 18.7%. Urine microalbumin measurements increased from 10.6% before to 15.3% after intervention. Only a slight increase was observed for other tests.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Physician to physician outreach visits can be an effective way to improve the processes of care for diabetes and to routinize nationwide use of practice guidelines.
authors.affiliation: Caisse nationale d'assurance maladie des travailleurs salariés, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ricordeau
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Durieux
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weill
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chatellier
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Vallier
authors.forename: Alvine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bissery
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fender
authors.forename: Hubert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Allemand
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000379:methods*; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D015397:Program Evaluation