Process of care compliance is associated with fewer diabetes complications.

Objective: To examine the association between processes measures of diabetes care and time to progression for 4 diabetes complications: coronary artery disease (CAD), stroke, heart failure (HF), and renal disease (RD).

Study Design: This retrospective study followed outcomes from 2003 through 2009 in a cohort of 1797 employees with diabetes who worked for a large US manufacturer and were enrolled in the same health insurance plan.

Methods: Quality of care was measured by consensus standards for testing glycated hemoglobin, lipids, and microalbuminuria. Employees with diabetes who received all 3 measures of care in the baseline year (2003) were compared with those who received less complete testing. Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to assess potential associations between diabetes care and time to complications, controlling for potential confounders.

Results: Observed differences between the 2 groups in time to event were significant for 2 of the 4 complications: HF (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.39, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.19-0.81; P = .0117) and RD (HR = 0.48, 95% CI, 0.24-0.95; P = .0339) and any of the 4 complications (HR = 0.66, 95% CI, 0.48-0.91; P = .0101). Differences in time to complication for CAD (HR = 0.70, 95% CI, 0.49-1.02; P = .0635) and stroke (HR = 0.63, 95% CI, 0.38-1.07; P = .0891) showed the same trend but were not significant.

Conclusions: Employees with diabetes who received all 3 quality measures experienced fewer complications, risk-adjusting for other factors. These results provide support for the importance of care quality.