Health Care Resource Utilization Associated with a Diabetes Center and a General Medicine Clinic

OBJECTIVE: Studies have proposed that the features of diabetes clinics may decrease hospital utilization and costs by reducing complications and providing more efficient outpatient care. We compared the health care utilization associated with a diabetes center (DC) and a general medicine clinic (GMC). DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: An urban academic medical center. PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS: Type 2 diabetes patients (N = 601) under care in a DC and GMC before March 1996. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We compared baseline patient characteristics and outpatient care for the period of March 1996 to August 1997. Using administrative data from March 1996 to October 2000, we compared the probability of a hospitalization, length of stay, costs of hospitalizations, the probability of an emergency room visit, and costs of emergency room visits. Diabetes center patients had a longer mean duration of diabetes (12 years vs 6 years, P