Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Does higher quality of primary healthcare reduce hospital admissions for diabetes complications? A national observational study.
To determine if hospital admission rates for diabetes complications (acute complications, chronic complications, no complications and hypoglycaemia) were associated with primary care diabetes management. ⋯ After controlling for population factors, better scheduled primary care access and glycaemic control were associated with lower hospital admission rates across most complications. There is little rationale to restrict primary care-sensitive condition definitions to acute complications. They should be revised to improve the usefulness of hospital admission data as an outcome measure, and to facilitate international comparisons. The risk of emergency hospital admission should be monitored routinely.