Final Presentation

We presented our findings and recommendations last Thursday to Dr Mohan and other staff at the clinic. It was a great day and everyone was excited to hear what we'd found. Tracy also arrived in Chennai that day

Let me tell you a little about my work at the clinic. Our team is part of a partnership between Dr Mohan's Diabetes Specialities Centre (sic) and the Global Health Institute at Emory. A group of professors at Emory work with Dr Mohan on a regular basis, and the idea for this project came from that partnership.

Our task was to identify the causes and consequences of irregular patient followup at the clinic. Specifically, over 10,000 new patients were registered as having diabetes in 2005 but most have not returned to the clinic since being registered. Regular visits to the clinic are important, so why do patients not do it? We surveyed 205 patients who have not returned to find out. We also took blood samples of 80 to determine their current diabetes control.

We found that the majority of patients are simply visiting another doctor to help with their diabetes. The problem here is that instead of going to a diabetes specialist, the majority of these patients are seeking treatment from general physicians or labs. In several cases these other "doctors" simply continue to prescribe the same medications Dr Mohan's DSC did originally, even though the prescription should be adjusted. Further, a fourth of the patients who say they go to another doctor do not do so on a regular basis.

We found that patients who said they go to some kind of doctor or clinic at least yearly for their diabetes are in much better control of their diabetes than those who do not.

During the project my team worked with members from Dr Mohans DSC to conduct the survey and analyze the results. There were 4 of us from Emory: 1 business school student (me), 1 public health student, 1 sociology and economics student, and 1 bioinformatics student. On the clinic's side, we had individuals from different parts of the business: IT, reception, administration, dietetics. These individuals had never done a research study before, so not only did my team have to figure out how to conduct the study, drawing from each of our diverse backgrounds, but we also had to teach the others the methods we would be using. Our work required both teams to work across cultures, communicate, be flexible, and think creatively. We each learned a lot in the process.

Members of the team:



As part of our presentation, my team also made recommendations for how the clinic could encourage patients to followup on a regular basis. These involved some marketing schemes, simple adjustments to how the dieticians and diabetologists interact with the patients, and some adjustments to the patient process.

Working a late night on the project:


As we worked, the clinic served us lunch at the canteen every weekday. Here's a picture of a common meal:



In October, our Chennai-based team will visit Atlanta to help us present our work to GHI (Global Health Institute). We are all looking forward to it.

Today, Tracy and I are leaving to tour Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, and Mumbai (other cities in India). Wish us luck.