Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is having devastating effects on individuals, families, and health systems
because of its growing prevalence and the morbidity it causes. This has led the Irish health care reform initiative,
or SlainteCare, to prioritise T2DM as part of a Chronic Disease Management (CDM) programme. However, the
levels of the care, risk factor management, and diabetes-related morbidity in Ireland are unknown, as is the impact
of the CDM programme.
Aims: This research programme aims to examine the levels and trends of diabetes preventive care practices, risk
factors, and preventable hospitalizations in Ireland among adults with T2DM and how these outcomes have been
affected by eligibility and implementation of the national CDM Progamme.
Approach: Our programme will assemble a multi-disciplinary consortium of experts and harmonized analytic
dataset on over 663,000 adults from the Centric-CRADLE data system of 66 GP practices, along with Irish national
hospitalization and health survey data. We will use these data to conduct a series of observational epidemiologic
analyses and natural experimental studies. Our epidemiologic analyses will examine the status, levels and trends
of preventive care services, risk factor control, and preventive hospitalizations among Irish adults with T2DM and
pre-diabetes from 2015 to 2026. We will then use rigorous natural experimental methods to compare the levels
and changes in care, control, and outcomes according to access and implementation of the SlainteCare CDM
programme between 2020 and 2026.
Summary of Policy-Relevant Questions to be Addressed: Our programme will help policy-makers to prioritise
problems and populations at risk of inadequate diabetes care, assess the impact and modify the national diabetes
prevent and care guidelines, and inform the architecture and metrics of the national diabetes registry.
