Therapeutic inertia

Module 1: Therapeutic inertia in primary care

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CME Credits: 1
Module duration: 1 hour
Launch date: Autumn 2020 (version 1)
Updated: Autumn 2021 (version 2)
Expiry date: March 2027
Audience: Diabetes and Metabolism Specialists (Basic), General Physicians (Subspeciality)

Hello. My name’s Kamlesh Khunti. I’m a GP and Professor of Primary Care and Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester. Today I’ll be taking a number of questions from my colleagues in primary care of important, burning issues regarding therapeutic inertia. So we’ve changed the terminology. We used to call it clinical inertia but we’ve now termed it therapeutic inertia. The main reason is that clinical inertia could be directed at things like referral inertia or screening inertia, while therapeutic inertia captures mainly inertia that’s in relation to therapies that we’re using in people with type 2 diabetes.

Despite good evidence to show that good glycaemic control early in the disease history results in better outcomes for people with type 2 diabetes, glycaemic control is demonstrably suboptimal in type 2 patients all around the world. One leading culprit implicated in this phenomenon is therapeutic inertia. Through a Q&A session between one of the UK’s leading experts on therapeutic inertia and leading primary care physicians from across Europe, this module addresses key questions about this important aspect of diabetes care.

Laiteerapong N, Ham SA, Gao Y, Moffet HH, Liu JY, Huang ES, Karter AJ. The Legacy Effect in Type 2 Diabetes: Impact of Early Glycemic Control on Future Complications (The Diabetes & Aging Study). Diabetes Care. 2019 Mar;42(3):416-426.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30104301

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

Explain the impact of therapeutic inertia and the consequences for patients with diabetes

Identify the barriers to optimal care and the typical profile of inertia-prone patients

Plan the optimal treatment for patients with diabetes to overcome therapeutic inertia


This module includes self-marked assessments, such as knowledge checks and/or case studies, as well as a marked final assessment, which you can attempt up to five times. To complete the module, you must review all chapters, pass the final assessment (80% pass mark), and fill in our feedback form.


Contributors

Professor
Kamlesh Khunti
Author
Professor
Pinnar Topsever
Expert Reviewer
Assessment Setter
Assessment Setter
Assessment Setter