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Article: Optimizing the frequency of physician encounters in follow-up care for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A systematic review

TitleOptimizing the frequency of physician encounters in follow-up care for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A systematic review
Authors
KeywordsFollow - up care
Physician encounters
Risk stratification
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
Issue Date26-Jan-2024
PublisherBioMed Central
Citation
BMC Primary Care, 2024, v. 25, n. 1 How to Cite?
Abstract

Background: Decisions on the frequency of physician encounters for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have significant impacts on both patients' health outcomes and burden on health systems, whereas definitive intervals for physician encounters are still lacking in most clinical guidelines. This study systematically reviewed the existing evidence evaluating different frequencies of physician encounters among T2DM patients.

Methods: Systematic search of studies evaluating different visit frequencies for follow - up care in T2DM patients was performed in MEDLINE Ovid, Embase Ovid, and Cochrane library from database inception to 25 March 2022. Studies on the follow - up encounters driven by non - physicians and those on the episodic visits in the acute care settings were excluded in the screening. Citation searching was conducted via Google Scholar on the identified papers after screening. The risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane RoB2 tool for randomized controlled trials and Newcastle - Ottawa Scale for cohort studies. Findings were summarized narratively.

Results: Among 6363 records from the database search and 231 references from the citation search, 12 articles were eligible for in - depth review. The results showed that for patients who had not achieved cardiometabolic control, intensifying encounter frequency could enhance medication adherence, shorten the time to achieve the treatment target, and improve the patients' quality of life. However, for the patients who had already achieved the treatment targets, less frequent encounters were equivalent to intensive encounters in maintaining their cardiometabolic control, and could save considerable healthcare costs without substantially lowering the quality of care and patients' satisfaction.

Conclusion: Existing evidence suggested that the optimal frequency of physician encounters for patients with T2DM should be individualized, which can be stratified by patients' risk levels based on the cardiometabolic control to guide the differential scheduling of physician encounters in the follow - up. More research is needed to determine how to optimize the frequency of physician encounters for this large and heterogeneous population.


Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/341700
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.0
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 1.021
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorXu, Wanchun-
dc.contributor.authorMak, Ivy Lynn-
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Ran-
dc.contributor.authorYu, Esther Yee Tak-
dc.contributor.authorNg, Amy Pui Pui-
dc.contributor.authorLui, David Tak Wai-
dc.contributor.authorChao, David Vai Kiong-
dc.contributor.authorWong, Samuel Yeung Shan-
dc.contributor.authorLam, Cindy Lo Kuen-
dc.contributor.authorWan, Eric Yuk Fai-
dc.date.accessioned2024-03-20T06:58:24Z-
dc.date.available2024-03-20T06:58:24Z-
dc.date.issued2024-01-26-
dc.identifier.citationBMC Primary Care, 2024, v. 25, n. 1-
dc.identifier.issn2731-4553-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/341700-
dc.description.abstract<p><strong>Background: </strong>Decisions on the frequency of physician encounters for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have significant impacts on both patients' health outcomes and burden on health systems, whereas definitive intervals for physician encounters are still lacking in most clinical guidelines. This study systematically reviewed the existing evidence evaluating different frequencies of physician encounters among T2DM patients.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Systematic search of studies evaluating different visit frequencies for follow - up care in T2DM patients was performed in MEDLINE Ovid, Embase Ovid, and Cochrane library from database inception to 25 March 2022. Studies on the follow - up encounters driven by non - physicians and those on the episodic visits in the acute care settings were excluded in the screening. Citation searching was conducted via Google Scholar on the identified papers after screening. The risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane RoB2 tool for randomized controlled trials and Newcastle - Ottawa Scale for cohort studies. Findings were summarized narratively.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Among 6363 records from the database search and 231 references from the citation search, 12 articles were eligible for in - depth review. The results showed that for patients who had not achieved cardiometabolic control, intensifying encounter frequency could enhance medication adherence, shorten the time to achieve the treatment target, and improve the patients' quality of life. However, for the patients who had already achieved the treatment targets, less frequent encounters were equivalent to intensive encounters in maintaining their cardiometabolic control, and could save considerable healthcare costs without substantially lowering the quality of care and patients' satisfaction.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Existing evidence suggested that the optimal frequency of physician encounters for patients with T2DM should be individualized, which can be stratified by patients' risk levels based on the cardiometabolic control to guide the differential scheduling of physician encounters in the follow - up. More research is needed to determine how to optimize the frequency of physician encounters for this large and heterogeneous population.</p>-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherBioMed Central-
dc.relation.ispartofBMC Primary Care-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectFollow - up care-
dc.subjectPhysician encounters-
dc.subjectRisk stratification-
dc.subjectType 2 diabetes mellitus-
dc.titleOptimizing the frequency of physician encounters in follow-up care for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A systematic review-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.doi10.1186/s12875-024-02277-9-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85183449466-
dc.identifier.volume25-
dc.identifier.issue1-
dc.identifier.eissn2731-4553-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:001149902600001-

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