Abstract
More than 100 million people in the USA have diabetes or prediabetes and are at high risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Current evidence-based guidelines support a multifactorial approach in patients with diabetes, including lifestyle intervention and pharmacological treatment of hyperglycemia, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. In addition, recent cardiovascular outcome trials demonstrated that sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists improve cardiovascular outcomes in patients with diabetes. Albeit this evidence, over 80% of patients with diabetes do not achieve the recommended treatment goals. Considering the rising burden of cardiovascular complications, there is need to improve the quality of care in patients with diabetes. In this review, we discuss the current quality of health care in patients with diabetes in the USA, identify barriers to achieve guideline-recommended treatment goals and outline opportunities for the improvement in caring for patients with diabetes.