All people

The percentage with diabetes is highest among those living in remote regions.

• 8.1% of people in major cities with diabetes
• 8.6% of people in regional areas with diabetes
• 9.6% of people in remote areas with diabetes

People with diabetes

• Most live in major cities or regional areas.
• 78.7% People with diabetes live in major cities
• 20.7% People with diabetes live in regional areas.
• 0.6% People with diabetes live in remote areas.

Most people with diabetes who live in major cities and regional localities have diabetes first recorded in the GP setting. For most people who live in remote areas, diabetes is first recorded in the hospital setting.

• Major cities - Hospital 39% and GP 61%
• Regional areas - Hospital 39% and GP 61%
• Remote areas - Hospital 54% and GP 46%

Over a 2-year period, people with diabetes who live in remote areas had lower utilisation of primary care and higher utilisation of ED and hospital care than those living in major cities or regional areas. 

GP visits

• Major cities  - 13.5%
• Regional areas  - 14.5%
• Remote areas - 11.7%

Hospital admissions

• Major cities -  2.5%
• Regional areas - 2.4%
• Remote areas - 3%

ED presentations

• Major cities - 1.2%
• Regional areas - 1.8%
• Remote areas - 3.2%

Outpatients visits

• Major cities -9.3%
• Regional areas - 10.3%
• Remote areas - 14.6%

Chronic disease management plan

• Major cities  - 39%
• Regional areas  - 43%
• Remote areas - 18%

Cholesterol recorded 

• Major cities  - 53%
• Regional areas  - 53%
• Remote areas - 42%

HbA1c recorded 

• Major cities  - 47%
• Regional areas  - 48%
• Remote areas - 32%

Blood pressure recorded

• Major cities  - 59%
• Regional areas  - 62%
• Remote areas - 54%

Background 

Diabetes is a burdensome condition in NSW and management of diabetes is compounded by fragmentation in the current health system, particularly at primary and acute care system interfaces.   There have long been aspirations to understand the impact of primary care and its interactions with other health services. However, up until recently, attempts to assemble this information have been small scale. The Lumos program links records from participating NSW general practices (GPs) to records held by NSW Health such as hospital admissions, emergency department and outpatient visits, and mortality. This factsheet provides information about diabetes in primary and acute care settings that is available in the Lumos data asset. 

About the study

470 practices, representing 17.6% of all NSW general practices provided data.

How many people were in Lumos? 

3,965,041 patients were included in the linkage, representing 48.5% of the NSW population. 

Who was included? 

2,066,166 people aged 18 years or older, who had visited a Lumos participating practice in the two years up to, and were alive on, 30 September 2021. Diabetes was counted if a person had a diabetes diagnosis recorded in their GP or hospital records.² 

How many people had diabetes diagnosed? 

8.2% (168,992) of people included in the Lumos data had a recorded diagnosis of diabetes, compared with an estimated 11% of the NSW adult population³ and 6.1% reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.⁴

Notes

1.  The Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Remoteness Structure 
2. Diabetes diagnosis recorded in general practices that were not participating in the Lumos program will not be captured in this analysis 
3. 2019 prevalence rate for persons in NSW aged 16+ per NSW Population Health Survey and Evidence, NSW Ministry of Health
4. 2017-18 prevalence rate for persons in NSW aged 15+ per National Health Survey: First Results, 2017-18 – New South Wales