Effect of a primary-care-team focused diabetes educational program project on diabetes care quality indicators in a large health maintenance organization

In 2011 the central district of Leumit Health Services (LHS) (a health maintenance organization in Israel) implemented a chronic care program to improve diabetes care in general practice: MESSAGE program (Motivation, Education, Skills and Supervision to Achieve better diabetes care in General practice Environment), included training phase and ongoing time allocation for diabetes care. A population-based retrospective analysis of LHS Electronic Medical Records of all patients with diabetes in LHS between 1 June 2015 and 31 May 2018. Data was processed according to the definitions of the Israeli national program for quality indicators in community healthcare. ~442,000 adults were included, ~49,000 in MESSAGE engaged clinics. The prevalence of diabetes in LHS was ~9.7–9.31% during study period. Over 3 years follow up, the prevalence of patients with A1C ≥ 9% declined in all districts of LHS but to a significantly greater extent in MESSAGE clinics [2015: MESSAGE 12.4%, LHS-combined 13.09%; OR 0.92 (0.83–1.01) p = 0.075; 2018: MESSAGE 8.51%, LHS-combined 10.85%; 0.76 (0.69–0.85) p