Bridging the quality gap in diabetes care

Abstract

“At the end of the day it’s not about me and it’s not about the hospital, it’s about the patient.” The sentiment of this GP was echoed by many others during interviews which I conducted to better understand attitudes towards improving diabetes care. Ultimately, the purpose of the health system is to improve the health and quality of life of the patient, not the system itself. This goal appears obvious and yet a gap remains between the ideal, as set out in national and international guidelines, and the reality of care delivered to people with diabetes. The gap in quality is by no means a distinctly Irish problem and we can certainly learn from the efforts of other countries. However the techniques we choose to improve the quality of care will need to be adapted to fit our national context and local circumstances. With this in mind, I began my ...