Diabetes, a chronic condition in which the body has lost its ability to produce insulin or utilize it correctly, is the fifth-leading cause of death by disease in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control estimated in 2005 that more than 20.8 million Americans have diabetes at a cost, according to the American Diabetes Association, of more than $132 billion.

Disease management programs that focus on Type-2 diabetes have been viewed as a means to counter this epidemic. Increasingly, these programs rely on information technologies (IT) to identify patients, engage them more actively in their care, remind providers of appropriate preventive screenings and treatment options, and track patients with diabetes over time. Yet the value that IT-enabled diabetes management programs could bring to Type-2 diabetes care is not known.

To examine this issue, the Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL) with generous support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and InterSystems, researched the benefits, costs, and quality implications of IT-enabled diabetes management programs (ITDM) in the US. Summarized in our report, The Value of Information Technology-Enabled Diabetes Management, CITL’s research indicates that ITDM can:

• Avoid millions of cases of diabetes complications, such as kidney failure, stroke, heart attacks, and blindness, can be avoided, and can save hundreds of thousands of lives.



• Improve compliance with standards of care, from the current rate of less than 50% to as high as 80%.



• Save money in select cases. Electronic diabetes registries used in physician offices can save a net of $14.5 billion in diabetes-related costs over 10 years. Other forms of ITDM cost more than they save.

The Report

The Value of Information Technology-Enabled Diabetes Management examines the technologies used in diabetes disease management. The report clarifies and projects the value generated by payer, provider, and patient-based forms of these technologies as well as the investment needed to implement them.

The analysis answers many key questions, such as:

• What are the ITDM technology options?
• Do short term changes using ITDM project out to long term benefit?
• How do study results using ITDM generalize to other settings?
• What is the total cost of an ITDM system?
• Does ITDM make sense for smaller organizations or payers?

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