Lincoln Diabetes Quality Improvement Initiative

The most recent data (2023) shows approximately 12% of Americans, more than 40 million people in the United States are living with diabetes.  Of the 40.1 million people living with diabetes, 29.1 million had been diagnosed, and 11 million are undiagnosed.  An estimated 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed every year and over 115 million Americans age 18 and older are living with prediabetes. In the last 20 years, the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes has more than tripled as the American population has aged and become more overweight or obese with diabetes now being the 7th leading cause of death in the United States.  In Nebraska, 1 in 11 people have been diagnosed with diabetes, where it is the 7th leading cause of death as well.

Diabetes is incurable, but it is manageable.  Poorly managed diabetes greatly increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, and is the leading case of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, and blindness.  Medical costs and lost work and wages in the U.S. for people with diagnosed diabetes in 2022 totaled $412.9 billion ($306.6 billion in direct medical costs and $106.3 billion and in indirect costs)

These sobering statistics were the basis for the Lincoln Diabetes Quality Improvement Initiative, a joint/collaborative project between Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, OneHealth Nebraska, The Physician Network and Bryan Physician Network.  The initiative was launched in 2018 to help healthcare providers develop standardized processes to increase patient outreach and education, improve patient self-care management, and track patient progress. 

Participating providers develop care management plans that help their clinics or practices implement communication, documentation, and follow-up processes that ultimately result in assisting patients to better self-manage their diabetes.  Innovative approaches within some of the participating clinics and practices include providing diabetes education in 3 different languages.