ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The proposed 2015 US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines recommend diabetes screening for individuals ≥45 years or demonstrating other risk factors for dysglycemia. Still, many patients with dysglycemia remain undiagnosed, and opportunities for early intervention are lost. METHODS: To test novel approaches for diagnosis using the haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c ) test, we screened adult patients who were admitted to an observation unit from the emergency department with no known history of pre-diabetes or diabetes. RESULTS: Of 256 subjects, 9% were newly diagnosed with diabetes and 52% were newly diagnosed with pre-diabetes. Of those aged 18-29 years, 33% were newly diagnosed with dysglycemia, while 55% of those aged 30-44 years and 70% of those aged ≥45 years were newly diagnosed with dysglycemia. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that regardless of age, a large proportion of patients in the emergency department observation unit have undiagnosed dysglycemia, an important finding given the large number of observation admissions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Subject(s)
Diabetes Mellitus/diagnosis , Glycated Hemoglobin/analysis , Prediabetic State/diagnosis , Adolescent , Adult , Age Factors , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Diabetes Mellitus/blood , Diabetes Mellitus/epidemiology , Emergency Service, Hospital , Female , Hospitals, Religious , Humans , Incidental Findings , Male , Mass Screening , Middle Aged , New York , Prediabetic State/blood , Prediabetic State/epidemiology , Prevalence , Watchful Waiting , Young AdultABSTRACT
In Brief This article describes a diabetes champion program in its fifth year of operation. This educational intervention was designed to increase direct diabetes patient education and has grown into a vehicle for improving quality of care and patient safety and reducing gaps in the transitions of care.
