Good News/Bad News

The latest Annals of Internal Medicine* features a report card on diabetes care in the U.S. - and it looks like we continue to squeak by as C students. CDC researchers, using data from several national population-based surveys, looked at data from people with diabetes between the ages of 18 and 75. Among the findings:

The Good

• The proportion of people with an A1c between 6 and 8% increased to 47 percent.
  
• The proportion of people with fair to good lipid control was up 21.9 percent.
  
• Annual flu vaccination, recommended for people with diabetes, was also up by 6.8 percent.
  
• Annual cholesterol testing, dilated eye eamination, and foot examination increased by 8.3, 4.5, and 2.8 percent respectively.

The Bad

• The number of people with an A1c of less than 6% dropped from 23.4 percent to 16.4 percent (down 7 percent).
  
• One in five Americans with diabetes still have poor glycemic control.
  
• Two in five people with diabetes have poor LDL cholesterol control.
  
• One in three people with diabetes have poor blood pressure control.

The Status Quo

• Mean hemoglobin A1c did not change (7.7 percent is the national average for this patient population).

Clearly we still have some work to do.

*Source: Ann Intern Med. 2006; 144:465-474.

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