BOSTON – Implementing IT strategies to manage diabetes and keep better track of patients could save thousands of lives, new research from the Center for Information Technology Leadership shows.

However, only one of those technologies – electronic diabetes registries – offered the potential to provide savings that would produce a positive return on investment. Other adaptations of IT would end up costing far more than the savings they would produce, CITL’s study concluded.

The report, by the Boston-based not-for-profit research organization, provides a sobering assessment of how much advanced technology can reduce healthcare costs.

The CITL research also indicated that market inefficiencies still needed to be addressed. The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and supported by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, is based on model projections and aided by literature reviews, expert assessments and market research.

“At the national level, electronic diabetes registries are the only form of information technology-enabled diabetes management we found to be cost-beneficial when adopted for all patients with Type 2 diabetes,” said Blackford Middleton, MD, CITL’s chairman. “Costs are a major factor in realizing value from ITDM, and we need to find the means to lower the costs of these IT-enabled interventions.”

Over 10 years of full implementation for provider-based diabetes registries, CITL estimates total savings of $14.5 billion, compared with total costs of $6.1 billion, for a positive return of nearly $8.4 billion. Registries, which provide reminders about care to both providers and patients, and provide other information as needed, also would reduce diabetes-related mortality by 710,000 over the 10-year span, CITL estimates.

“The implication is that if registries are effective in improving the care of patients with diabetes and produce savings, then we should look toward policies to get this into place,” said Doug Johnston, CITL’s executive director.