ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus (DM), the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, is a disease that affects millions of people each year1 and claims more lives than both AIDS and breast cancer combined. The prevalence of diabetes is on the rise due to aging, urbanization, and increasing prevalence of obesity and physical inactivity. The spatial unit of analysis used to analyze the descriptive and utilization characteristics of T2DM patients is the geocoded residential addresses of all unique cases. The US healthcare system currently spends almost 9% of its total spending on the direct treatment of diabetes. The descriptive data exploration coupled with geographic information system hot spot analysis has revealed the stark gender, racial, insurance, and income disparities among the patients within the high-concentration clusters. Patients with diabetes were also the greatest contributors to the high overall unplanned 30-day hospital readmission rates, which is a performance measure used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to adjust reimbursements for overall Medicare discharges.
