Strengths and limitations
The empirical derivation of profiles of healthcare utilisation of type II diabetes patients as opposed to self-defined profiles provides new insights in healthcare utilisation and demands of type II diabetes patients. A number of points should be considered in our study. First, not all GPs’ actions were recorded in a structured way in their EMR and could for that reason not be incorporated in our analyses. We chose to include only the information that was recorded in a concise and structured way by all GPs. This meant that we unfortunately were unable to include information about the exact content of the consultations in general practice and do not know whether for example lifestyle advice was given, nor were structured clinical outcome data available (e.g. glycated haemoglobin level or blood pressure). This then makes it impossible to make inferences about the effect of the different primary healthcare utilisation profiles on patient outcomes. This should be addressed in future research. Second, no referral to a physiotherapist is needed since 2006 and therefore the number of patients visiting a physiotherapist was underestimated. Research shows that mostly patients with acute problems (instead of chronic problems) visit a physical therapist on their own initiative, which is not often the case with diabetes patients [30]. In some practices no primary care nurse was working in the practice, and therefore these patients may not be assigned to profiles which are largely described by contacts with primary care nurses. Additional analyses (available upon request by the first authors) limited to practices with a primary care nurse showed similar effects of determinants of diabetes-related primary healthcare profile membership, although the profile ‘high utilisation, GP and nurse’ in comparison to the profile ‘low utilisation, GP only’ showed slightly underestimated effects of the main medication type for diabetes compared to the model with all practices. In addition, healthcare utilisation as presented in this study does not reflect the ideal or needed level of healthcare.
Strengths and limitations
The empirical derivation of profiles of healthcare utilisation of type II diabetes patients as opposed to self-defined profiles provides new insights in healthcare utilisation and demands of type II diabetes patients. A number of points should be considered in our study. First, not all GPs’ actions were recorded in a structured way in their EMR and could for that reason not be incorporated in our analyses. We chose to include only the information that was recorded in a concise and structured way by all GPs. This meant that we unfortunately were unable to include information about the exact content of the consultations in general practice and do not know whether for example lifestyle advice was given, nor were structured clinical outcome data available (e.g. glycated haemoglobin level or blood pressure). This then makes it impossible to make inferences about the effect of the different primary healthcare utilisation profiles on patient outcomes. This should be addressed in future research. Second, no referral to a physiotherapist is needed since 2006 and therefore the number of patients visiting a physiotherapist was underestimated. Research shows that mostly patients with acute problems (instead of chronic problems) visit a physical therapist on their own initiative, which is not often the case with diabetes patients [30]. In some practices no primary care nurse was working in the practice, and therefore these patients may not be assigned to profiles which are largely described by contacts with primary care nurses. Additional analyses (available upon request by the first authors) limited to practices with a primary care nurse showed similar effects of determinants of diabetes-related primary healthcare profile membership, although the profile ‘high utilisation, GP and nurse’ in comparison to the profile ‘low utilisation, GP only’ showed slightly underestimated effects of the main medication type for diabetes compared to the model with all practices. In addition, healthcare utilisation as presented in this study does not reflect the ideal or needed level of healthcare.
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