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Within the medical ecosystem, health guidelines aim for timely diagnosis and regular follow-up of chronic illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, to ensure that no patient gets left behind. However, two studies by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst show that a patient's actual care experience can vary, and not just along the typical demographic lines that research usually investigates.

"To predict whether you are going to experience a potential delay in detecting your type 2 diabetes or whether your follow-up care after you are diagnosed occurs in a timely manner is not so much about your age or your gender, but more about the clinical practices in your primary care provider," says Muge Capan, assistant professor of industrial engineering in the Riccio College of Engineering at UMass Amherst. "I think that's very powerful if you think about it: Where you go to primary care says something about your health outcomes."

This idea that clinic-level decisions impact patients' chronic disease diagnosis and follow-up was reflected in two papers by Capan's lab, focusing on patients with type 2 diabetes.

In the first paper, published in IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering , the researchers found that prevailing policies on scheduling follow-up appointments in primary care can both over- and underschedule patients. The time between primary care appointments impacts how quickly increases in blood sugar (the measure of hemoglobin A1c) are detected before a patient has a health crisis.

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