Group Visits To Doctor Can Help Diabetics Get High-Value, High-Quality Health Care At Reduced Cost

THE American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE) at its 20th Annual Meeting and Clinical Congress in San Diego last month issued new clinical practice guidelines for developing comprehensive care plans for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The guidelines emphasize a personalized approach to controlling diabetes and achieving blood glucose targets with care plans that take into account patients’ risk factors for complications, comorbid conditions, and psychological, social, and economic status.

While it is recognized that every individual patient’s needs are unique, there are times when simple group visits also work wonders for diabetics manage their condition. It's a small but slowly growing trend that promises to get more attention with the tight supply of primary care physicians, who find it hard to squeeze in time to teach their patients how to deal with a complex chronic illness like diabetes.

Group visit programs are rapidly proliferating in group practice and managed care organizations throughout the United States in an effort to leverage existing resources and to provide high-value, high-quality health care in this era of increasing purchaser and patient demands for enhanced services at reduced cost.

Group visits typically include group education, shared problem-solving, focused private or semi-private medical evaluations that allow individualized medication adjustment, and ordering of preventive services and referrals. Sessions may last from 60 minutes to several hours and typically include 3 to 20 patients. The draw for patients lies in the potential for group visits to provide better access and to improve counseling, between-patient learning, and self-efficacy.

What's in it for the doctor? Dr. Ray Dorsey, a neurologist, studied the pros and cons of group appointments and found he learned more about how his Parkinson's patients were faring by watching them interact with others than when he had them one-on-one. Indeed, group visits gave him the opportunity to observe his patients for a longer period of time and appreciate problems he may not readily have appreciated during a routine office visit.

"I can see if you're getting worse over the course of the visit, your ability to eat, to walk, to converse and to think," says Dorsey, who led a pilot study of group checkups for Parkinson's patients at the University of Rochester Medical Center, adding, "This is a new way of delivering health care. People are thirsting for better ways." Dorsey reported his findings last week in the journal Neurology.

"Many heads are better than one. They think of questions you wouldn't normally think of by yourself," says Jim Euken, a retired judge and Parkinson's patient from Belmont, NY. He began exercising on a bicycle after one of Dorsey's group visits discussed research showing some patients can still cycle when they can barely walk, for unknown reasons. “I still think I learned more and I think the process was better doing it in a group format," he confirmed.

Research has shown patients often enjoy interacting in a group environment that can provide encouragement and tips that they may not receive in a short clinical visit. On the other hand, physicians may benefit from the change of pace and a chance to creatively and more thoroughly address the issues presented by chronic conditions common in primary care.

Peer pressure among patients helps, family physician Dr. George Whiddon of Quincy, Florida, told Associated Press. He has about 40 diabetic patients divided into groups for shared checkups at Tallahassee Memorial Family Medicine Quincy, and he wants to add more.

One woman with uncontrolled diabetes for years confessed to fellow patients that she'd ignored Whiddon's eat-better-take-your-meds advice for too long. "Now I only have one toe left. I should have listened," Whiddon recalled her saying. "That had more impact than anything I said all day."

The use of group visits is an innovative approach now receiving attention for its potential to improve the care of established patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, while using available resources more efficiently. The terminology of group visits includes “group visits,” “shared medical appointments,” “cluster visits,” and “problem-solving DIGMA (drop-in group medical appointments).”

Of course, group appointments don't replace the patient's annual in-depth physical. But many people with chronic illnesses, especially if they're not well-controlled, are supposed to have additional follow-up visits about every three months — an opportunity for shared checkups that stress patient education.

But how well do these group visits work? Evidence is mixed. An Italian study published last year found that diabetics who took part in them lowered their blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol more than similar patients who got regular individual office visits.

A separate study at two Veterans Affairs Medical Centers, in North Carolina and Virginia, tracked people with poorly controlled diabetes and blood pressure and also concluded shared appointments can improve care for some people. Those in group visits significantly improved their blood pressure and needed less emergency care, but there was no difference in diabetes improvement between patients who had shared checkups or regular ones.

Shared check-ups aim to help patients who are battling certain chronic diseases, and they're far from the typical 15-minute office visit. They're stretched over 90 minutes or even two hours, offering more time to quiz the doctor about concerns, learn about managing the disease — and get tips from fellow patients.

What needs to be stressed, though, is that group and individual visits work well together and complement each other: the strengths of one model are often the weaknesses of the other, and vice versa.

Edward B. Noffsinger, a pioneer in the field of group medical visits, sounds a note of caution. “While a carefully thought-out group visit program can maximize benefits to patients, physicians, purchasers, insurers, and health care organizations alike, it is very important that any potential for abuse also be thoroughly examined and scrupulously prevented if these benefits are to be fully realized,” he says.

He points out that in today's challenging, competitive health care environment, group visits can be abused in two basic ways: 1) by putting fewer resources into group visits than adequately supported, properly run programs require, or 2) by attempting to extract more from group visits than is commensurate with good care.

“If we wait until some abuse of group visits actually occurs and receives negative publicity, we could incur a public relations black eye, which could seriously undermine the credibility of all such programs in the future ‒ a predictable, preventable, and completely unnecessary injury to the image of group visit programs,” he says.

Moreover, should third-party insurers, upon recognizing the multiple economic and patient care benefits which group visits can offer, over-incentivize them relative to individual visits, abuse could result which would reduce the voluntary nature of group visits for physicians and patients alike.

“Despite all of these concerns surrounding potential abuses, group visits will undoubtedly continue to grow in importance and be ever more frequently used during the coming years. Without question, group visits have an important role to play in the future of health care,” Noffsinger concludes.

Sources: Associated Press, Neurology, American Academy of Family Physicians, NIH

Related Posts:

Individualized Care Plans Necessary for Treating Diabetes, Says AACE

NIH Unveils 10-Year New Strategic Plan to Combat Diabetes

Caring Doctors Improve Patients’ A1c, LDL Scores

Diabetes Management: Killer Apps That Are Revolutionizing Diabetes Care

The advantages of the wireless world are finally being brought to use beyond socializing. For us diabetics, they're being used as a means of communicating critical information about our health and the status of the conditions that can be mortally devastating and an expensive burden.

Of course, nothing replaces weight loss and proper diet. But, in the meantime, communications technology can be used as a means to inform, monitor and support patients.

Indeed, health care providers and medical companies are quickly learning how to leverage emerging communication and electronic technologies to make diabetes management more efficient, reducing hospitalizations and ultimately decreasing the cost of the disease to individuals and on society.

What's more, the health care market is seeing a large influx of companies who are putting technology to use in a growing field of healthcare communications and health-record management. At a basic level, this means using technology to manage health records and share information with a patient's physician or other approved health care providers and caregivers ‒ including family members.

But, for treating diabetes patients in particular, the use of technology has been slow. When killer apps for iPhone and iPad are out in the market days after the devices are released, it is quite ironic that given the ever-changing condition of diabetes ‒ by its very nature we could benefit from up-to-the minute capabilities that technology brings ‒ diabetes management technology remained rooted in the last century. But that’s changing.

At long last, technology is coming to the rescue of diabetics, trying to make diabetes management easier. In fact, just in the past few years, there finally has been marvelous progress in diabetes care. This isn't just with insulin pumps and home blood glucose monitoring systems. The technologies available now and those at the cusp of development are really encouraging and exciting.

Wireless Technology Improves Patient Care For Marginalized CommunitiesOf my favorites is an innovative use of wireless technology will help underserved communities improve diabetes care and prevention in Tijuana. Using 3G mobile technologies, the Dulce Wireless Tijuana project helps patients in remote areas both monitor and treat their diabetic condition. The Dulce Wireless Tijuana system, announced by Qualcomm Incorporated in October last year, combines mobile applications, web applications, mobile phones, netbooks, laptops, diabetes educational content and health care worker and patient training. Service delivery is available to diabetes patients and their caregivers wirelessly through Qualcomm’s 3G technology network.
                                              

Dulce Wireless Tijuana patients now will have access to the system and technology, including primary care diabetes services and disease management programs. The project stands as an example of how wireless technology can improve patient care for marginalized communities — not just in Mexico, but throughout the world.

Goodbye Bariatric Surgery!
Then there is a matchbox-sized gadget called DIAMOND (Diabetes Improvement and Metabolic Normalization Device) ‒ a.k.a. TANTALUS™ ‒ developed by German medical device maker MetaCure. The system is implanted under the skin on the abdomen, and stimulates the stomach muscles when the patient is eating. This tricks brain into thinking more food has entered the stomach than the person has actually eaten. To deal with this supposedly large meal, the brain boosts insulin production as well as triggering the release of hormones that suppress appetite.

This means that the patient feels full much sooner than normal. A wireless charger system allows the patient to recharge the device at home by placing the charger over the abdomen for 45 minutes, once a week. The result is an improvement in blood glucose levels, which is often accompanied by weight loss, and reduction of blood pressure, waist circumference and blood lipid level. Goodbye bariatric surgery!

Over 200 patients are using the DIAMOND system to date, many of them for over two years, and many for over four years. Trials at the Medical University of Vienna showed the device reduced blood glucose levels by a quarter over three months and the DIAMOND has been shown to significantly reduce blood glucose levels and blood pressure levels. Goodbye bariatric surgery!

Diabetes Management System Could Be iTunes of Diabetes Care
A UK-based medical device company, Cellnovo develops and manufactures an innovative mobile diabetes management system. Comprised of a mobile connected micropump, mobile touchscreen controller, blood glucose meter and applications, the Cellnovo system provides intuitive operation, wireless Internet connectivity and real-time activity tracking – all industry firsts.

Cellnovo offers extensive experience gained at the world’s premier medical device and wireless companies, including Medtronic, DuPont, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, AT&T Lucent, and other industry leaders. The Cellnovo system’s advanced micropump technology enables people with diabetes to more efficiently manage their life-saving therapies while benefiting from greater personalization and portability. This mobile-connected, disease management approach to diabetes removes the burden of keeping journals and pushes information to healthcare professionals so they always have a real-time view of this information

Treating High Blood Pressure With Radio Waves
 

The Symplicity Catheter Systemdeveloped in Australia is used to perform a procedure termed renal denervation (RDN). In a straightforward endovascular procedure, similar to an angioplasty, the physician inserts the small, flexible Symplicity Catheter into the femoral artery in the upper thigh and threads it into the renal artery. Once in place within the renal artery, the device delivers low-power radio frequency (RF) energy to deactivate the surrounding renal sympathetic nerves. This, in turn, reduces hyper-activation of the sympathetic nervous system, which is often the cause of chronic hypertension. The one-time procedure aims to permanently reduce blood pressure. RDN may also allow patients to reduce or eliminate the need for lifelong antihypertensive medications.

The procedure is highly effective with 84 per cent of patients who underwent renal denervation experiencing a reduction in systolic blood pressure by more than 10 mmHg. The study also found that the therapy was safe, with no serious device or procedure-related events, no cardiovascular complications and no kidney-related complications.

Removing Pain From Diabetes Management
A quick and painless way to measure blood sugar is highly sought-after by diabetes sufferers, who currently have to prick their fingers to draw blood several times a day. Now, researchers in the US may have found a solution – a device that works by simply shining a light on skin.

An MIT team has developed an algorithm to relate blood glucose to interstitial glucose levels. “We’ve incorporated a mass-transfer model into the overall Raman spectroscopic algorithm, which allows us to seamlessly transform between blood and interstitial fluid glucose,” explains Ishan Barman, lead author of the research.Using an early version of the device, the team tested the blood-sugar levels of some human volunteers and found that the accuracy and precision of the test was just as good as conventional finger-prick tests. In addition, the new algorithm allows the test to predict impending episodes of high or low blood sugar (hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia) by extrapolating the rate of change of sugar concentration.

The vision is to create a laptop-sized device that could be kept at home or carried around. Rather than having to pierce the skin to obtain blood samples, the device measures sugar levels by simply placing a scanner against the skin. Because measurement is fast and easy, it is hoped that the device may encourage people with diabetes to check their blood sugar more often, giving them better control over their condition.

This research addresses a real problem and appears to provide an important means for improving the calibration of non-invasive sensors. It may also be helpful in the development of a so-called ‘artificial pancreas’ – where insulin can be dispensed automatically in response to sugar levels.

High-Tech Tattoo For Monitoring Blood Sugar
Another MIT team has given people with diabetes one more reason to join the tattoo craze: a special tattoo under development could help them monitor their blood sugar. The team is developing a glucose “tattoo” that could give people with diabetes a visual track of their blood sugar, and reduce the need for the painful finger pricks required for traditional monitors. The glucose tattoo ink, which would be injected under the skin, would be made from a substance that can reflect infrared light back through the skin to a watch-sized monitor that the person with diabetes wears over the ink.

By having this special ink injected under their skin, and by consistently checking the small monitor worn over it, people with diabetes can get a “real-time” feed on their glucose. They can note and take action when they see their blood sugar climbing or dropping; they don’t have to wait until they can get to a convenient place to conduct a finger prick or, worse, until they start to feel ill. The device also opens up an avenue of thought: if special ink can alert people with diabetes to dropping glucose levels, could an automatic, implanted glucose dispenser or pump be far behind?

Shed a Tear to Test Blood Sugar
On diabetes forum like TuDiabetes, diabetics are forever discussing lancet devices, painful pricks, first drop of blood, and callused fingertips. Now a team of researchers at the Arizona State University in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic is developing a new sensor that could make the lives of diabetes patients much easier. The team has come up with a sensor that would enable patients to take tear fluid from their eye to test their glucose levels. The researchers claim the tear sample would give just as accurate a reading as a blood test does.

Team members assessed how current devices were working – or failing – and how others have attempted to solve monitoring problems. They came up with a device that can be dabbed in the corner of the eye, absorbing a small amount of tear fluid like a wick that can then be used to measure glucose. Because of its potential impact on health care, the technology has drawn interest from BioAccel, an Arizona nonprofit that works to accelerate efforts to bring biomedical technologies to the marketplace.

Improving Compliance
A number of companies have developed continuing blood glucose monitoring and insulin injection products with the goal of improving compliance in diabetic patients. Today's children with diabetes also have the opportunity for better blood glucose control than any generation before.

A research study reported in Pediatric Diabetes showed that, compared to multiple daily insulin shots, children on insulin pump therapy for 12 months significantly and consistently lowered their A1C levels. In fact, insulin pump therapy has been shown to significantly decrease severe hypoglycemia in youth. Recent studies showed that adolescents and young children on insulin pump therapy had over 50 percent fewer episodes.

To encourage compliance in diabetic children, Bayer Diabetes Care recently released its Didget blood glucose monitor, which connects to the Nintendo DS and DS Lite. The meter provides children with an adventure game that rewards consistent testing with points, which can be used to unlock new game levels. The product was approved by the FDA in April.

Bioject Medical Technologies markets a needle-free injection system that is approved for delivering subcutaneous or intramuscular injections.

The system forces liquid medication through a tiny opening held against the skin, creating an ultra-fine high-pressure stream that penetrates the skin. The technology can be used for a variety of applications, including diabetes, malaria and influenza.

Echo Therapeutics has developed a wireless, transdermal glucose monitoring system for patients with diabetes. The Symphony tCGM Systemuses a skin permeation device, called Prelude, to painlessly remove the outermost layer of skin in approximately three to five seconds, allowing the transdermal biosensor to read glucose levels through the remaining layers of skin.

OrSense has developed a noninvasive continuous glucose monitor that utilizes a patented technology called Occlusion Spectroscopy. A ring-like sensor temporarily closes off (occludes) blood flow in the patient’s finger, creating new blood dynamics that generate a unique optical signal. Clinicians can analyze the signal to obtain measurements of glucose levels and other blood parameters.

Online Diabetes Resources
Then there are new computer programs that support the analysis of home blood glucose data. Insulin pens are finally the norm and diabetes sufferers are using not just more convenient and expedient methods of insulin administration ‒ they are now using more accurate methods because of technologies that provide improved measurement and monitoring. The idea of subcutaneous glucose sensors were a dream only a decade ago and now they're an everyday part of diabetes care.

Bethesda-based Telcare, a Bethesda-based company that has developed blood glucose monitoring technology that combines a glucose meter with wireless connectivity to Telcare's "cloud" server. The electronic device keeps an open two-way communication between a patients and caregivers ‒ those that are loved ones and those that are professionals such as the nurses and doctors.

Telcare monitor users can access all of their glucose data, as well as offering additional electronic logbook capabilities such as manual recording, nutrition recording, weight management, exercise regimens, medication amounts, and blood pressure statistics. Most impressive is that Telcare provides a cross-platform social community where people with diabetes and healthcare professionals can interact, share stories, discuss the diabetes technology that they use, and learn from one another.

Many diabetes-related health problems ‒ such as eye, kidney and heart disease ‒ are the result of high levels of blood glucose affecting organs over time. So doctors are encouraged that today's young diabetes patients can achieve consistent, lower blood sugar levels from an early age that can continue for a lifetime. For example, Roche makes the ACCU-CHEK® Spirit insulin pump system.

These pumps are milestones above the traditional method of treating fluctuating glucose levels. These pumps can deliver 480 basal doses of insulin each day. But here's where technology comes in: A Palm device and the ACCU-CHEK Pocket Compass software with a bolus calculator determines a patient's bolus doses and even creates pie charts and other graphs to track a patient's progress. This software application can be loaded onto smartphones.

Another company is PositiveID Corp, a growth-stage micro-cap known for their digital personal health records technology. The company unveiled its new 'iglucose' technology at the Cellular Technology Industry Association (CTIA) annual conference in Orlando, Florida last week. It is a wireless communication device for the automatic transmission of blood glucose readings from market leading, data-capable glucometers to the iglucose database.

PositiveID's iglucose technology is making great strides in the advancement of diabetes management and control by allowing patients to wirelessly track blood glucose levels. It connects to the patient's existing glucometer and, using M2M (machine-to-machine) technology, collects, records and transmits a patient's blood glucose data to the iglucose database.

From there, it can be shared automatically via text message, email or fax with family members and health care professionals in real-time. In doing so, iglucose helps eliminate the burden of keeping journals and empowering individuals with diabetes to be more engaged in the self-management of their condition.

Cure for Diabetic Neuropathy
Neuropathy is typically measured by taking skin biopsies from the foot and running a series of specialized tests that can take up to a week to complete. In many cases, this debilitating condition is not identified until serious, and irreparable, damage has already been done.

But in a profound and important breakthrough, Nathan Efron, an Australian optometrist, has discovered that the nerves affected by neuropathy are an exact match to nerves found in front of the eye, and is testing whether looking at their level of degeneration in these nerves over a period of time would match the nerve degeneration found in arms and legs.

Quick and non-invasive eye tests would deliver results in a matter of minutes. In short, the importance of Efron’s discovery lies in the fact that since the eye is a transparent structure, it is the only place in the body where you can look directly at nerves and their degeneration over time.

There are multiple benefits of being able to measure the onset of neuropathy, one being that there are drugs in development that aim to cure diabetic neuropathy. When these drugs are ready to come onto the market the method would be able to detect nerve degeneration early and then hopefully cure it.

For the tests, patients would receive a drop of anesthetic in the eye. A corneal confocal microscope would then capture a 20 second “movie” of their eye for analysis. Two more eye tests will look at the effect of nerve degeneration on the retina.

Efron hopes his discoveries will lead to early testing for diabetic neuropathy that will motivate sufferers to better manage their disease. Testing could be carried out at the same time as diabetes patients are tested for other eye problems caused by the disease. The test has been used to monitor nerve regeneration in patients who have undergone kidney and pancreas transplants, and it could help track the effects of new treatments.

It’s interesting to ponder how technology – much of which already exist for other uses – can help us maybe not cure diseases like diabetes, but at least treat them in a way that takes the burden off the patient. There's more to come…What ideas do you have?

With inputs from Huffington Post

Diabetes Self-Monitoring: Shed a Tear to Test Blood Sugar Level

For a diabetic, nothing is more bothersome than self-testing to monitor blood sugar levels. Current monitoring devices typically require patients to perform the painful task of pricking their finger to draw blood for a test sample. And many patients must do it several times each day. Indeed, comments in one TuDiabetes forum over the past 6 weeks have underscored this issue.

Even as diabetics discuss lancet devices, painful pricks, first drop of blood, and callused fingertips, a team of researchers at the Arizona State University in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic is developing a new sensor that could make the lives of diabetes patients much easier.

Led by bioengineer Jeffrey T LaBelle, a research professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at the ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, the team has come up with a new sensor which would enable patients to take tear fluid from their eye to test their glucose levels. The researchers claim the tear sample would give just as accurate a reading as a blood test does. The diagram above explains how the device works.

LaBelle correctly points out that the painful finger prick, which is the current norm, makes people reluctant to take the test. Glucose in tear fluid may give an indication of glucose levels in the blood as accurately as a test using a blood sample, the research claims.

“The problem with current self-monitoring blood glucose technologies is not so much the sensor. It’s the painful finger prick that makes people reluctant to perform the test. This new technology might encourage patients to check their blood sugars more often, which could lead to better control of their diabetes by a simple touch to the eye,” says LaBelle.

The research findings have been published in Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology (2:6, 307-11).

The research team comprises LaBelle, the designer of the device technology, and Mayo Clinic physicians Curtiss B. Cook, an endocrinologist, and Dharmendra (Dave) Patel, chair of Mayo’s Department of Surgical Ophthalmology.

The ASU-Mayo research team began the project with funds from a seed grant from Mayo Clinic. Researchers got assistance in the laboratory from ASU students involved in research at ASU’s Biodesign Institute and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative program.

Team members assessed how current devices were working – or failing – and how others have attempted to solve monitoring problems. They came up with a device that can be dabbed in the corner of the eye, absorbing a small amount of tear fluid like a wick that can then be used to measure glucose.

The major challenges are performing the test quickly, efficiently, with reproducible results, without letting the test sample evaporate and without stimulating a stress response that causes people to rub their eyes intensely.

Because of its potential impact on health care, the technology has drawn interest from BioAccel, an Arizona nonprofit that works to accelerate efforts to bring biomedical technologies to the marketplace, says a Mayo Clinic press release.

“A critical element to commercialization is the validation of technology through proof-of -concept testing,” says Nikki Corday, BioAccel business and development manager. “Positive results will help ensure that the data is available to help the research team clear the technical hurdles to commercialization.”

The researchers must now compile the proper data set to allow for approval of human testing of the device. “With funding provided by BioAccel, the research team will conduct critical experiments to determine how well the new device correlates with use of the current technology that uses blood sampling,” says Ron King, BioAccel’s chief scientific and business officer.

The results should help efforts to secure downstream funding for further development work from such sources as the National Institutes of Health and the Small Business Incentive Research Program, King says.

BioAccel will also provide assistance using a network of technical and business experts, including the New Venture Group, a business consulting team affiliated with the WP Carey School of Business at ASU under the supervision of associate professor Daniel Brooks.

Self-Monitoring Blood Sugar: Is 'Second Drop' and Squeezing Finger to Draw Blood OK?

I’ve been regularly testing my blood sugar at home for nearly a decade now. At times when I get an error message on the glucometer (thanks to incorrect technique but more often because of insufficient blood), I never hesitate to squeeze out a second drop of blood on a fresh strip to get a “proper” reading. All the while I was blissfully unaware that both my actions are a matter of debate in Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME) pundits.

It seems there is no general agreement regarding the use of the first or second drop of blood for glucose monitoring. The American Diabetes Association and other groups say that people should thoroughly wash and dry their hands, and then test the first drop of blood that comes from the finger. However, they do not have advice on what to do when you cannot wash your hands.

Now a new study suggests if soap and water are nowhere to be found, using the "second drop" of blood may be OK.

As for squeezing the finger, the researchers found that too much pressure did appear to interfere with accurate test results. On average, blood sugar readings were lower when people put pressure on the finger. The finding, according to the researchers, is in line with advice to avoid firm squeezing of the tested finger.

For the study, Dutch researchers at the Isala Clinics Diabetes Center at Zwolle in the Netherlands had 123 people with diabetes test their blood sugar under various conditions: after thoroughly washing and drying their hands; without hand washing; after handling fruit, which leaves sugar on the fingers; and after washing their fruity fingers.

The participants also tested their blood sugar using varying amounts of pressure to squeeze a drop of blood from the tested finger. (In general, guidelines advise against squeezing the finger too hard to get a blood drop because it may distort blood sugar readings.)

Overall, the study found, clean hands and the first drop provide the most accurate result. But compared with tests of clean hands, 11 percent of study participants had test results that were at least 10 percent off when they tested the first drop of blood from their unwashed hands. The same was true of 4 percent of study participants when they used the second drop of blood.

Based on that, the researchers recommend that people wash and dry their hands before testing, then use the first blood drop. But if they cannot wash up for some reason, it's "acceptable" to use the second drop after wiping away the first.

But what about fruity hands? In that case ‒ or whenever hands are visibly dirty ‒ a good washing is necessary, according to the researchers. They found that when study participants tested fruit-exposed hands without washing, 88 percent had blood sugar levels that were at least 10 percent off from their clean-hand readings ‒ at least when using the first drop of blood.

They fared better when using the second drop. But 11 percent still had results that differed substantially from their clean-hand measurements.

As for squeezing the finger, the researchers found anywhere from 5 to 13 percent of study participants had a significantly different blood sugar result (versus no squeezing), depending on how much pressure they put on the finger. On average, blood sugar readings were lower when people put pressure on the finger. The finding, according to the researchers, is in line with advice to avoid firm squeezing of the tested finger.

The findings are published in the early online edition of the journal Diabetes Care.

SOURCE: Diabetes Care