Home care of the elderly diabetic patient.
As the anticipated growth of sophisticated diabetic services continues to accelerated in homes across America, physicians must first be educated as to the potentially unlimited spectrum of diabetic home care products and services that will become increasingly available to the patients whom they serve. Second, much research must be completed to critically examine the safety, quality, and cost issues of diabetic home care, to provide the necessary data to assure that home care services will be neither under- or over-utilized and will meet the necessary acute and long-term health care needs of our diabetic patients. Third, physicians must take a leadership role in examining the pitfalls of our existing expensive and often fragmented acute care-oriented health care model, which has not effectively addressed the increasing costs and incidence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, in our society. With computerization and the explosive mobilization of high-technology health care products and services, we are witnessing an exponential growth in the list of services available in the home setting for diabetic patients. There has never been a time in the history of medicine that we, as physicians, have needed to create new, innovative, high-quality approaches to necessary, accessible, and cost-effective alternative health care delivery systems as is the case now. I believe that the renewal of home care, with physician vision, direction, and review, will be a major step toward the highest-quality medical care provided to our diabetic patients at home.