Introduction: There is an increasing number of diabetics in the population. Care of diabetes mellitus type 2 has been transferred from specialist care to the level of general practice. Collecting data and making database of diabetic care are set as quality indicators of diabetic care.
Aim: The aim is to present the electronic CroDiab GP program as a tool for collecting data on diabetics in family practice in Croatia. Another aim is to track diabetic quality care and include patients in the national registry of diabetics.
Methods: The program was demonstrated on a sample of 10 family practice units with approximately 18,000 patients from four districts in north Croatia. These units are involved in the project of tracking diabetic care quality in family medicine. The core population for data collection is set by the basic diagnostic unit according to ICD-10: E10-E14. The program mainframe is the CroDiab NET computer system. The central module of CroDiab NET is BIS (Basic Information Sheet). It is set as optimal data collection that allows tracking diabetic care quality. Sixteen diabetic variables were analyzed. These variables refer to the type of disease, duration, treatment, and procedure for early detection of complications.
Results: In the population of 18,0000 patients there were 822 (4.6%) diabetics. There were 6.3% of patients with type 1 diabetes and 87.4% with type 2 diabetes; 6.3% were unknown. There were 16.0% diabetics on diet therapy, 60.7% on oral medication (1 to 3 medications), and 13.4% on insulin therapy, 8.4 diabetics were on both insulin and oral medication.
Conclusion: Family medicine should present parameters of the quality of diabetic care. It is possible to collect data in electronic media, make statistical analysis and present data. The next step is entering patient data in the national registry of diabetics.