The American Diabetes Association (ADA) "Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes" includes the ADA's current clinical practice recommendations and is intended to provide the components of diabetes care, general treatment goals and guidelines, and tools to evaluate quality of care. Members of the ADA Professional Practice Committee, a multidisciplinary expert committee (https://doi.org/10.2337/dc20-SPPC), are responsible for updating the Standards of Care annually, or more frequently as warranted. For a detailed description of ADA standards, statements, and reports, as well as the evidence-grading system for ADA's clinical practice recommendations, please refer to the Standards of Care Introduction (https://doi .org/10.2337/dc20-SINT). Readers who wish to comment on the Standards of Care are invited to do so at professional.diabetes.org/SOC.
DIABETES AND POPULATION HEALTHRecommendations 1.1 Ensure treatment decisions are timely, rely on evidence-based guidelines, and are made collaboratively with patients based on individual preferences, prognoses, and comorbidities. B 1.2 Align approaches to diabetes management with the Chronic Care Model. This model emphasizes person-centered team care, integrated long-term treatment approaches to diabetes and comorbidities, and ongoing collaborative communication and goal setting between all team members. A 1.3 Care systems should facilitate team-based care and utilization of patient registries, decision support tools, and community involvement to meet patient needs. B 1.4 Assess diabetes health care maintenance (see Table 4.1) using reliable and relevant data metrics to improve processes of care and health outcomes, with simultaneous emphasis on care costs. B Population health is defined as "the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of health outcomes within the group"; these outcomes can be measured in terms of health outcomes (mortality, morbidity, health, and functional status), disease burden (incidence and prevalence), and behavioral and metabolic factors (exercise, diet, A1C, etc.) (1). Clinical practice recommendations for health care providers are tools that can ultimately improve health across populations; however, for optimal outcomes, diabetes care must also be individualized for each patient. Thus, efforts to improve population health will require a combination of system-level and patient-level approaches. With such an integrated approach in mind, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) highlights the importance of patient-centered care, defined as care that considers individual patient comorbidities and prognoses; is respectful of and responsive to patient preferences, needs, and values; and ensures that patient values guide all clinical decisions (2). Clinical practice recommendations,
