What's New in the 2019 Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes

COMMENTARY

What's New in the 2019 Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes

Anne L. Peters, MD

Disclosures

February 07, 2019

9

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Every year, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) updates its standards of medical care[1] for people with diabetes. Let's discuss what's new and interesting this year.

Improving Care With Telemedicine

Section 1 focuses on improving healthcare in populations. One of the recommendations I personally like is the discussion of telemedicine. In many places, telemedicine is not well funded. I think it's a great idea for our patients with diabetes because it allows us to reach out to them between in-person clinic visits.

Much of diabetes care doesn't involve face-to-face interactions with a patient in terms of doing a physical exam but rather involves discussing values from their meters or sensors. Telemedicine is a great way to go when it comes to managing our patients with diabetes, and I'm hopeful that it will become something that's done more commonly.

A One-Stop Diagnosis

Section 2 is about the classification and diagnosis of diabetes. Previous recommendations suggested that we diagnose diabetes on the basis of blood samples that were taken a week or two apart. You would check the blood glucose level, and if it was high, you would check it a second time to validate the first abnormal finding.

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