Medical Care, Education, Social Support, And Goal-setting to Empower Self-management for Diabetes

UChicago and MWCN will recruit and enroll 20 health centers (HCs) to participate in a training intervention and to implement diabetes group visit and text messaging programs at their clinic sites. Each HC will assemble a team of 3-4 providers and staff to participate in the training. HCs will be randomized to one of two training cohorts. HC providers and staff will attend two in-person Learning Sessions in Chicago and a series of monthly webinars, recruit and enroll patients, implement a 6-month diabetes group visit and text messaging program plus subsequent booster sessions, complete periodic surveys and interviews, assist with data collection through patient surveys and chart abstraction, and present their program to peer HCs during Learning Sessions and to local stakeholders, state primary care organizations, or other professional groups. Each HC will enroll 15 patients in the group visit and text messaging program; the 2018 Training Cohort will do so immediately following their enrollment in the study and the 2020 Training Cohort will do so after 18 months. During the first 18 months, the 2020 Training Cohort will collect data from electronic health records (EHR) of randomly selected patients to serve as a control group. Changes in self-reported outcomes, diabetes processes of care, and clinical outcomes will be assessed for intervention patients from baseline through 2 year follow up, and processes of care and clinical outcomes will be compared for intervention vs. control participants. Capacity of HC providers and staff to conduct a group visit and text messaging intervention for patients with diabetes, as well as their confidence in identifying and addressing health disparities, will be evaluated through surveys and in-depth interviews. This study will expand knowledge of the barriers, facilitators, and perceived benefits and drawbacks of group visit and text messaging interventions and inform the development of a toolkit that will be disseminated to other HCs.

Inclusion criteria

• 18 years or older
• diagnosis of type 2 diabetes
• attended at least two appointments at the HC within the past year, with at least one of them being during the past six months
• last documented A1c result greater than or equal to 8.0% (test must have been done during the last 6 months)
• own a cellular phone with text messaging capabilities
• have the ability to read and send text messages
• English or Spanish speaking

Exclusion criteria

• pregnant or planning to become pregnant
• uncontrolled psychiatric problem
• dementia or other cognitive impairment
• hearing difficulties or severe physical disability that would prevent them from participation in group visit
• planning to relocate in the next year or leave the area during the group visit period