Prediabetes epidemic in sight

Prediabetes is a terminology that, recently, is used when a person is detected with higher than normal levels of blood glucose, but there is no pathology. Prediabetes could be understood as a disposition to develop diabetes in the future, a disease that, in turn, represents a condition that puts one at risk of serious affections such as nephropathy, retinopathy or cardiovascular disorders, among others. Due to this chain of risks, and with a healthy intention to reduce morbidity and mortality, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) led a study to consider that glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c) is a test that can be done without any preparation or need for fasting and see if it can become a new criterion for detecting prediabetes. The concern arises when, according to this diagnostic extension, it’s estimated that in millions of pre-diabetics would show up: in China 493, in the US 86 and in Spain 6, to cite three countries from which I have data.

The Patient Revolution according to Victor Montori

In 2016, Victor Montori, a professor of medicine and diabetes doctor at the Mayo Clinic, launched The Patient Revolution, a foundation whose mission is to help make truly patient-centred treatment a reality. In his new book, Why We Revolt, Montori argues that “industrial medicine” has corrupted the mission of medicine to the point where doctors are now incapable of caring for the people who place their trust in them (for further information about the author in this same blog, search for “Montori, V." entries in the tags [top-right-hand column].

The face as a mirror... of the pocket!

Pedro Rey


As this is my first post on this blog, let me introduce myself. I am a researcher into behavioural economics, a field that uses ideas from psychology to enrich the study of economic problems. More specifically, at present we are working on a project that – as I will explain at the end of this piece, and for various reasons – may have interesting implications in the field of medicine.

Our research aims to answer a simple question: what is the relationship between how much consumers like the products they buy and how much they are willing to pay for them?

An extensive model for complex chronic patients

The emergent phenomenon of multi-chronicity and geriatric fragility is analyzed from all points of view: demographic, epidemiological, the use of resources and the economic impact, to mention only the most outstanding. Now familiar with the tendency, we’re facing the challenge of finding out how to provide appropriate services to patients who, due to the precariousness of their health, or their social circumstances, or both, suffer instability and become frequent and directionless visitors.

This group of complex patients, although not too large, is stressing the rigidities of health systems in three ways: a) the saturation of hospital emergency services consuming ambulances and observation beds is unable to give effective responses to the needs of these people, b) lack of coordination of transfers between levels, especially between the hospital and primary care, and c) poly-medication due to prescription fragmentation.

What do chronic patients want?

Fragmentation of services is a disgrace for complex chronic patients, for people with combined health and social needs, for fragile people and, in short, for the elderly population. Hence, most governments are engaged in service integration initiatives, but progress is slow and the results are disappointing because systems are too fragmented: in budgets, in access rights, in circuits, in professional cultures, in institutions, in public and private providers, etc. However, the British have proposed a merger of services by 2020, and since they recognize that, as things stand, offering people-centred care will be a bulky process, in the summer of 2013 they launched a project, “People helping people", a project that is ambitious in vision but modest in methodology and budget.

What is "People helping people"?

The program is working on 25 pilot areas that volunteered to test (as previously done in Torbay) different ways of coordinating and integrating services in order to promote patient-centred care, for which they rely on a single operative objective of elaborating, on the part of all the actors, of individualized plans that adapt to each person’s particular needs and way of life. In terms of methodology, the project has adopted the "triple aim" (Institute for Healthcare Improvement), which develops the following principles: a) improve patient experience, b) improve the health and well-being of the population, and c) reduce the waste and, therefore, the cost per capita.