Gannon Meghan, Qaseem Amir, Snow Vincenza
Department of Medical Education and Publishing, American College of Physicians, 190 N Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA.
Am J Med Qual. 2010 Jan-Feb;25(1):6-12. doi: 10.1177/1062860609345665. Epub 2009 Sep 28.
Morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes make it a prime target for quality improvement research. Quality gaps and racial/gender disparities persist throughout this population of patients necessitating a sustainable improvement in the clinical management of diabetes. The authors of this study sought (1) to provide a population perspective on diabetes management, and (2) to reinforce evidence-based clinical guidelines through a Web-based educational module.The project also aimed to gain insight into working remotely with a community of rural physicians. This longitudinal pre-post intervention study involved 18 internal medicine physicians and included 3 points of medical record data abstraction over 24 months. A Web-based educational module was introduced after the baseline data abstraction. This module contained chapters on clinical education, practice tools, and self-assessment. The results showed a sustained improvement in most clinical outcomes and demonstrated the effectiveness of using Web-based mediums to reinforce clinical guidelines and change physician behavior.
