Dr Andrew Rhinehart: Improving Intermediate Outcomes in Diabetes Research

Andrew Rhinehart, MD, chief medical officer at Glytec, discusses the transition from intermediate outcomes in diabetes research of glycemic results to harder outcomes that will benefit the patient financially and through their care.

Transcript (slightly modified)

Can you describe the transition in diabetes research from focusing on glycemic results to costs for health systems?

Over the last year or so we’ve made a concerted effort to switch our evidence strategy from that of solely glycemic control to one of the hard outcomes. We call the glucose control more of an intermediary outcome and we know that we can reduce hypoglycemia in hospitals. We know that we can reduce hypoglycemia and keep people in that glucose target range more frequently.

Now what we want to do, and what we have done, is proven that improving that intermediate outcome actually improves the harder outcomes. The hard outcomes to me, especially as a clinician, are length of stay so my patients can go home sooner from the hospital, readmissions so my patients don’t have to come back in the hospital, obviously both of those are advantageous, but we can also reduce infection rates etc. So, that’s what we have targeting here over the last little bit, making sure that glucose control translates into those harder outcomes and the financial outcomes that they reward as well.