Diabetes Day Incorporates Care Into Single Visit, Makes Patients and Docs Happier

By John Henry Dreyfuss, MDalert.com staff.

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  • Clinic shuts down once a month, except for care of diabetes patients.
  • Patients who come to Diabetes Day have been able to decrease their HbA1C significantly when compared to those patients who did not attend.
  • Diabetes Day requires no new building, no new specialists to diabetes patients, no significant technology infrastructure was needed to support the program.
  • Simple redesign of current care processes for diabetic patients using readily available resources enabled clinicians to initiate this program.

Once a month, Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York, hosts Diabetes Day. “On this day, the clinic shuts down its doors to its usual patients and invites patients with a hemoglobin A1C >8 to come for a visit,” explained Alok Sharan, MD. “The patients start the day by meeting the ophthalmologist, podiatrist, endocrinologist, nutritionist, and social worker,” he explained. “The last visit of the day is with the primary care physician who reviews all the notes from the previous specialists before ending the visit.”

Maximum Results

Dr. Sharan is Chief of the Orthopedic Spine Service at, Montefiore Medical Center, and Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in Bronx, NY. He is a member of the advisory board of MDalert.com.

According to Dr. Sharan, based on preliminary analyses, those patients who come to Diabetes Day have been able to decrease their HbA1C significantly when compared to those patients who did not attend. When speaking with these patients about the program they say things like “convenient,” “good experience,” and “one stop shop.”

Minimal Resources Expended

What did it take to do this? Did the hospital have to build a new building? No. Were new diabetes specialists hired? No. Was a tremendous amount of technology infrastructure needed to support this? No.

It simply took a redesign of the current care processes for these diabetic patients using readily available resources. It also required an integration of specialists to work together differently for the care of these patients. The result of all this has been improved healthcare quality with decreased healthcare costs, all with a good experience for the end user, the patient.

The result of all this program has been improved healthcare quality with decreased healthcare costs, all with a good experience for the end user.


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