The American Diabetes Association has produced an abridged version of its 2015 Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes tailored specifically to primary care providers (PCPs). The condensed Standards appears in the spring 2015 issue of Clinical Diabetes, the Association’s quarterly journal for PCPs, and is freely accessible on the journal’s website and via the Association’s “Clinical Practice Recommendations” resource page on DiabetesPro.

The ADA Professional Practice Committee annually reviews the latest research and revises the Standards of Care to provide up-to-date guidance on the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes. The Standards are abridged with the assistance of the ADA Primary Care Advisory Group (PCAG) to highlight the information most applicable to primary care. The multidisciplinary PCAG advises the Association on the needs and perspectives of PCPs, who are on the front lines of the diabetes epidemic, providing care for about 90 percent of all people with diabetes. 

“Keeping up with the ever-changing guidelines can be very hard for busy primary care providers, who are not merely treating one condition, but rather many conditions every single day,” PCAG Chair Jay Shubrook, DO, FACOFP, FAAFP, said. “The abridged Standards are a second-level synthesis of the most important diabetes recommendations. The larger Standards summarize the latest science; this shortened version outlines the key guidelines that are most useful in day-to-day primary practice.”

The Standards document is divided into 14 sections to highlight key topic areas. The abridged version follows the same framework, providing a condensed version of each section. However, it devotes particular attention to the foundations of diabetes care, including self-management education, nutrition, physical activity, smoking cessation, psychosocial care, and immunizations; glycemic treatment and therapeutic targets; prediabetes; the diagnosis and treatment of macro- and microvascular complications; and the initiation and intensification of insulin therapy in type 2 diabetes. 

To access the abridged version of the 2015 Standards of Care, please visit the Clinical Diabetes website. Visit the Association’s website at professional.diabetes.org/soc