Alphabet Strategy for diabetes care: A multi-professional, evidence-based, outcome-directed approach to management

Abstract

With the rising global prevalence in diabetes, healthcare systems are facing a growing challenge to provide efficient and effective diabetes care management in the face of spiralling treatment costs. Diabetes is a major cause of premature mortality and associated with devastating complications especially if managed poorly. Although diabetes care is improving in England and Wales, recent audit data suggests care remains imperfect with wide geographical variations in quality. Diabetes care is expensive with a sizeable amount of available expenditure used for treating the complications of diabetes. A target driven, long-term, multifactorial intervention in patients with type 2 diabetes has been shown to reduce mortality and morbidity. The alphabet strategy is a novel approach to effective diabetes care provision, aiming to address patient education and empowerment, provide consistent comprehensive care delivered in a timely fashion, and allowing multidisciplinary team work.

Keywords: Alphabet strategy; Diabetes care management; Checklist; Multifactorial intervention; Chronic disease management

Core tip: The alphabet strategy is a novel approach to effective diabetes care provision, using a checklist approach to delivering multifactorial intervention. The aim is to address patient education and empowerment, provide consistent comprehensive care delivered in a timely fashion, and allow multidisciplinary team work. In this article, we demonstrate evidence for its clinical effectiveness.