Diabetes

This week, the top managed care stories included the White House budget director hinting at mandatory drug rebates in Medicare; a global cyberattack locked physicians out of patient records; and the National Diabetes Prevention Program released promising data from the first 4 years.

Findings from real-world studies will help clinicians and other health stakeholders better understand the use of Toujeo compared with Lantus, particularly regarding treatment dosage patterns, for patients with type 2 diabetes, according to Liz Zhou, MD, director of evidence-based medicine at Sanofi Medical Affairs.

This study highlights disparities in care for diabetes and hypertension for individuals with serious mental illness compared with the general Medicaid and Medicare populations.

The sharp decline in cardiovascular deaths is the good news. The connection between clusters of high death rates and high rates of poverty, limited education, poor diets, and lack of access to care remains the bad news.

The study authors say that communities can invest in mass transit systems as a prevention tool to avoid rising rates of obesity.

Full results of the CANVAS trial are expected to be released in June at the American Diabetes Association.

Heather Zacker, MS, senior director of Care Alliances of Joslin Innovation at Joslin Diabetes Center, discussed several ways primary care offices can transform their practices to provide optimal diabetes care. These include quality improvement, data analysis, and benchmarking initiatives to make the office more diabetes-friendly.

According to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, black individuals living in more racially segregated neighborhoods tended to have higher blood pressure, while those who moved to less segregated areas saw their blood pressure decrease.

The study found that the more classes the participants took, the more weight they lost. The DPP is set to begin in Medicare in January 2018.