Abstract

Providers are working to improve the quality of care and effectiveness of patient encounters in order to meet the guidelines for positive health outcomes in patients with diabetes mellitus. The following study considers the effectiveness of implementing a chart prep sheet specific to diabetic patients as a quality improvement tool in a diabetic population. 

This Quality Improvement study was performed at the Adventist site in Lemoore, California. The patient sample consisted of randomly selected patients with type II diabetes (n= 85). The prep sheet included the patients’ hemoglobin A1C measurements for the last year, diabetes-related exams due, comorbidity data, current diabetic medications, and recent diabetic education received. The goal of including this specific data was to emphasis key pieces of information that are obstacles in improving HbA1Cs. 
The average HbA1C before implementation of the diabetic patient-specific chart sheet was 32.1% poorly controlled (HbA1Cs were greatly than 9%). Following the implementation, HbA1Cs were reported in June as 28.4%; July as 28.4%; and August as 26.8%. Resulting in a decrease of 3.7%, 0.0%, and 1.6% respectively and 5.3% overall. Based on the current research, continuing to implement a form of chart prep that is specific to a patient population alongside an additional intervention method (such as team huddles, reminder sheets for goal lab values, or reserving weekly time to call on overdue labs) would be further beneficial.