Data Office Spotlight

Data from Michigan Medicine patients supports diabetes research

Clinical Teaching
"While searching for data about the overtreatment of diabetes, I was able to pull the list of patients meeting a special criteria (about 400 across family medicine departments) and also see how many of those had recent medical care encounters for a diagnosis of hypoglycemia (85)."

Grant Preparation
"This is where I use DataDirect most often. For grants, we need to know how many Michigan Medicine patients potentially meet eligibility criteria. With this tool, I can get very detailed statistics for the recruitment feasibility section of the grant in a few minutes."

Research
"I worked with a family medicine resident, Susan Kim, M.D., on a research project about the intersection between PCOS and diabetes/pre-diabetes in Michigan Medicine patients. With DataDirect, we were able to show exactly how many Michigan Medicine patients have PCOS and break down that cohort by those who have diabetes, pre-diabetes, normal glycemia, and those who have never screened. We also looked at who had been prescribed metformin. It became obvious from the numbers that very few patients with a diagnosis of PCOS had been appropriately screened for diabetes/pre-diabetes, and this is potentially a significant care quality problem." 

Caroline R. Richardson, M.D.
Max and Buena Lichter Research Professor of Family Medicine 
Associate Chair of Research