Disease Specific Health Risk Assessments: Steps for Improving Diabetic Patient Care in the Nursing Home Setting

Introduction/Objective: Providing LTC provider's education about the American Diabetic Association practice guidelines and alerting providers of patients who would benefit from guidelines has been shown to only minimally improve adherence to clinical standards of care in the nursing home setting. This study was designed to test the theory that in order to improve compliance with diabetic practice guidelines in LTC, providers must be: 1) Educated on the diabetic guidelines; and 2) Given specific recommendations on guideline practice outages for their specific patients utilizing a comprehensive diabetic health risk assessment tool.