Objective: in an academic family practice clinic, we performed a controlled trial of a multifaceted intervention versus usual care for managing diabetes. Providers received didactic training and computerized compliance feedback to support staged diabetes management, an evidenced-based approach to diabetes care.
Research Design And Methods: one firm of the clinic practice received the intervention, the other served as the control group during a 14-month baseline period and a 14-month study period.
Background: The design of delivery systems that can truly conduct continuous quality improvement (CQI) as a routine part of clinical care provision remains a vexing problem. The effectiveness of the "computerized firm system" approach to chronic disease CQI was examined, with diabetes as the focus of a 5-year case study.
Methods: A large family medical center had been divided into two parallel group practices for reasons of efficiency.