Transitional care clinic for uninsured and medicaid-covered patients with diabetes mellitus discharged from the hospital: a pilot quality improvement study.

AbstractTransitioning from the inpatient to outpatient setting is often a problematic aspect of diabetes mellitus (DM) care. Different factors during hospitalization may adversely affect glycemic control in patients, who are frequently discharged on regimens that differ markedly from prehospitalization outpatient regimens. Moreover, the discharge recommendations may not have been tested adequately during a relatively short hospital length of stay and pose a significant threat to patient safety upon discharge. Our pilot study evaluated the effect on hospital utilization of the transitional care clinic (TCC), where patients with DM are seen within 2 to 5 days of hospital discharge. One hundred patients with DM, who were either medically indigent (no insurance or Medicaid and no primary care providers) or covered by Medicaid, and who did not have a primary care provider, were randomized into either a control or an intervention group upon discharge from the hospital. Subjects from the intervention group (n = ...