Investigators: A/Prof Elizabeth Comino (CI), Prof Marion Haas, Prof Mark Harris, Prof Bin Jalaludin, Prof Siaw-Teng Liaw, A/Prof Gawaine Powell Davies, Dr Duong Tran.
Diabetes is a serious public health issue for older Australians. It has agreed management guidelines and is regarded as an ambulatory care sensitive condition. Although it is accepted primary health care (PHC) may reduce emergency admissions for patients with diabetes, few studies have explored which aspects, if any, of PHC provision impact on patient outcomes such as admission.
This study will explore the associations among receipt of processes and costs of quality PHC, attainment of clinical targets, health service use, and diabetes complications for older people with diabetes. It will address questions of policy importance to the development of health services for older Australians, using proven and cost effective methods to link data that already exist in various administrative data collections. The research aims to enhance understanding of ambulatory care sensitive conditions and enable the identification of the relative importance of process of care and attainment of clinical targets in improving health outcomes such as hospitalisation.
