1st Annual EUBIROD meeting Dasman Center for Research and Treatment of Diabetes, Kuwait City Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2nd-4th May 2009

Standardized European Diabetes Reports

F.Carinci on behalf of S.Skeie, NOKLUS, Norway

First BIRO Academy Residential Course, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2nd May 2009

Slides

A central element of the BIRO project is the ability to report diabetes outcome indicators for different regions in Europe. The creation of standardized reports requires the identification of a precise design for the output that can be usefully replicated. A template constitutes the basic reference which, through an agreed preset format, can be used repeatedly each time the report is applied or subsequently adapted.

In this presentation, Dr.Fabrizio Carinci, on behalf of Dr.Svein Skeie, clinical diabetologist from NOKLUS, Norway, explains how partners have collaborated to define a reports template from the initial set of indicators defined by the clinical review. The template defines specifically how BIRO results are to be displayed and explained on the web portal, taking into account the needs of different types of audiences, which reflect the different areas covered by the project: governance, health care, research and people with/without diabetes.

To realize the template, all data items and indicators from the clinical review have been listed in a table and assigned a specific level of priority and feasibility, where priority relates to the level of importance of its inclusion in the report, while feasibility indicates the possibility that the indicator could be practically estimated. Only data items and indicators with high priority and high feasibility were included in the final reports template. For each data item and indicator, any strata for output have been also indicated. A revision of graphical displays for diabetes reporting released by major agencies worldwide has been also undertaken. Best options have been selected as target statistical outputs for each category of audience, by data item and indicator, as well as the HTML code that would practically deliver results obtained by the application of the statistical engine.

Finally, a total of 72 data items/indicators were chosen, with an indication of the target audience and description of target statistical outputs. Results obtained have been directly submitted to the designers of the statistical engine and developers of the web portal to produce and organize all BIRO outputs accordingly.

Dr.Carinci, as a statistician involved with Norvegian partners to define the structure of the report, reminds that for statistical reports to be best informative, they must strictly relate to the evidence base. The range of indicators must be restricted to those most reliable, computed properly using standardized methods. Fabrizio concludes by remarking that through an objective procedure, the BIRO system has identified a minimal template that corresponds to the agreed set of indicators, referenced by a basic set of graphical outputs chosen among those currently available in diabetes reports worldwide.