The provider brings its omnichannel healthcare approach to chronic condition management and sets the standard for the future of primary care
Carbon Health, a leading national healthcare provider, today announced the launch of its diabetes program, a new omnichannel care approach to diabetes management that combines at-home continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices with direct access to an interdisciplinary care team available in-person and virtually. The program represents the full integration of Steady Health, a virtual diabetes care provider Carbon Health acquired in June 2021, which enables Carbon Health to adopt CGM-based care as the standard for diabetes management, a first of its kind in primary care.
Patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes have typically relied on self-management of their healthcare, battling symptoms while juggling numerous doctor appointments and struggling to access specialists for more personalized needs. With the full integration of Steady Health, Carbon Health is finally able to simplify diabetes management with CGM monitoring and logging that provides a complete picture of a patient’s health in one experience for both patients and providers. All data is collected and aggregated in a seamless way with the patient’s medical record in the Carbon Health Electronic Medical Record (EMR) where all members of the care team–including endocrinologists, diabetes educators, and primary care providers–can collaborate on the patient’s care plan and ongoing management.
The depth and continuous nature of the CGM data allows Carbon Health providers to closely manage glucose control and time in range more effectively, a key metric and surrogate for A1c that the American Diabetes Association recognized for the first time in its 2022 standards of care as offering superior insights for personalizing a patient’s diabetes management plan.
Carbon Health has partnered closely with industry leaders Abbott and Dexcom to seamlessly integrate CGM data into Carbon Health’s EMR and patient app, making the data easily accessible for both patients and providers. With a single click, Carbon Health providers can see patient-generated logs of meals, exercise, and medications overlaid against continuous data of glucose values to drive smarter care recommendations and treatment decisions. This makes Carbon Health one of the first health systems to integrate native CGM data as a standard feature of its EMR platform.
“There is severe fragmentation within the U.S. healthcare system, putting enormous pressure on patients and providers: there are broken handoffs between medical professionals, information is siloed, and providers aren’t able to provide holistic, continuous care,” said Myoung Cha, Chief Strategy Officer and President of Omnichannel Care at Carbon Health. “We are launching our diabetes program to eliminate these broken handoffs while also transforming chronic care management and setting the standard of omnichannel care not only for ourselves, but for the entire industry.”
Carbon Health’s diabetes care approach has demonstrated positive outcomes for patients. In pilots at Carbon Health clinics, 80% of diabetes patients achieved the guideline-recommended time in range goal of 70% within six weeks, despite an average baseline HbA1c value of 9.3%. This level of satisfactory glycemic control, roughly equivalent to a HbA1c of 7.0%, was maintained by 80% of patients at a median follow-up period of 15 weeks.
“Our pilot program proved patients with uncontrolled diabetes can achieve significant glycemic improvements by working with CGMs and a virtual multidisciplinary care team to provide continuous clinical feedback and support,” said Dr. Calvin Wu, Medical Director of Virtual Diabetes Care and endocrinologist at Carbon Health. “Our diabetes program will truly revolutionize chronic care management and we look forward to seeing the impact increase as we scale.”
Dr. Wu and team also recently published a study in JMIR Diabetes showcasing the positive impact of their care model on glycemic outcomes, further underscoring the approach that Carbon Health is taking by providing data-driven insights and continuous care. One year into the study, patients with uncontrolled type 1 and type 2 diabetes were maintaining their blood glucose in the desired range for four additional hours per day while minimizing hypoglycemia, and many were trained remotely to use advanced diabetes technologies including connected insulin pens and insulin pumps.
For more information about Carbon Health’s diabetes program, visit https://carbonhealth.com/primary-care/diabetes-management.
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