Redesigning Medication Intensification Effectiveness Study for Diabetes

This proposed study is a multi-practice, cluster-design, prospective randomized controlled trial with a total study intervention period of 12 months. This prospective randomized controlled trial will assess the effectiveness of performing NDMPs by the registered nurse supervised by a physician (the intervention group) in comparison with usual diabetes care (the usual care group) for adults with diabetes in primary care settings. The study population will be recruited from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Community Medicine Inc. (CMI) primary care practices in urban and suburban communities surrounding Pittsburgh, PA. Among these CMI practices, ten practices receive diabetes education services from University of Pittsburgh Diabetes Institute and will be the intervention group. These diabetes education services will be enhanced by the addition of NDMPs intervention. In addition, we will select another 10 CMI practices to be the usual care group. This group receives standard diabetes education with no use of NDMPs. One-hundred and fifty participants will be recruited across practices within each study group (i.e., 300 in total). Outcomes assessed in this study include clinical outcome and process measures as recommended by ADA, participants' quality of life, treatment satisfaction, and medication adherence, and providers' satisfaction, and costs/expenditure. Assessments will be done at baseline, and three and 12 months after the study entry. Analysis of the study outcomes will be based on intention-to-treat to determine (1) within-group differences between the baseline and follow-up visits, and (2) between-group differences between the intervention group and the usual care group.