UC Irvine

Clinical inertia is defined as a delay in intensifying medical treatment despite the fact that patients have not met clinical goals for control of their medical conditions. Little is known about clinical inertia among racial/ethnic minority groups with type 2 diabetes mellitus. This analysis uses three constructs—Access, Beliefs/Preferences, Communication—represented by the proxies of insurance status, race/ethnicity minority status, and English language fluency status—to evaluate the effect of race/ethnicity on clinical inertia in diabetes outcomes. This study was an observational retrospective review of a database of outpatient medical visits from January 2012 to December 2014. The database was organized to analyze clinical inertia for these patients, which was defined as the time to medication intensification after having a HbA1C greater than the target HbA1C≥8%. English-fluent patients were found to have greater odds of receiving medication intensification during a given time period, supporting the idea that non-English-fluent patients may be disproportionately affected by clinical inertia.