Implications for Primary Care Practice
diabetes
DIABETES
This study was conducted in a team-based practice that has administrative staff who can contact patients and engage them in DR screening. Practices that do not have the administrative resources to engage patients through phone calls may require physicians to find alternative ways to engage patients. One potential solution could be to engage with local teleophthalmology programs in a partnership, so that unscreened patients with diabetes in their practice can be contacted by the teleophthalmology program directly. It is important to note that due to the preexisting relationship between primary care providers and patients, screening engagement has been shown to be more effective if patients are being contacted by their primary care provider rather than by an independent program [