Grant allows for further diabetes research

The IU School of Medicine will continue to be a part of a $4.2 million national study regarding the quality of care received by diabetes patients. IU has received a five-year extension on the study and will receive about $625,000 each year, over the next five years.\nIU, along with five other institutions, will continue to participate in the Translating Research into Action for Diabetes study. According to its Web site, one of TRIAD's missions is "to improve the quality of care and quality of life for people with diabetes."\nTRIAD consists of six institutions working with 10 health plans and 66 provider groups, which together serve about 180,000 diabetes patients.\n"Part of our goal is to look at how to improve diabetes care and outcomes," said David Marrero, principal investigator the IU's portion of the TRIAD project. "Diabetes is a very devastating, very expensive disease."\nMarrero wrote the grant proposing IU be a part of the study. He said most of the money IU receives will be used to study how the different kinds of managed care organizations impact the outcomes of diabetes care. The rest of the money will be used for a variety of aspects, such as salary support for staff and team, evaluation studies, patient interviews and chart audits. \n"We'll come up with a plan of how to study a model of improving care," he said. "We're hoping to find out what are the kinds of things that inhibit us from delivering optimal diabetes care and fix that."\nSusanna Williams, project coordinator for IU's part of TRIAD, said eligible people were approached by their doctors regarding their involvement with the study. In Indiana, Wishard Advantage was the primary health plan that worked withTRIAD, along with IU Health Care -- which no longer exists -- Williams said.\nAlong with IU, the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, the Pacific Health Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the University of Michigan comprise the TRIAD project. Williams said she and Marerro met monthly with the other institutions to develop a research plan and had several face-to-face meetings and weekly teleconference calls with the other components of TRIAD to solidify their research strategy. \nDiabetes affects more than 18.2 million Americans -- 5.2 million of which are undiagnosed, according to the Center of Disease Control's Web site. Nearly 1.3 million people, age 20 or older, were diagnosed in 2002, and it is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.\n"We're excited and pleased to be continuing with the study," Williams said. "We're hoping to keep it going."\n-- Contact staff writer Laura Kruty at lkruty@indiana.edu.