Diabetes integrated care : are we there yet?

We commence this chapter with a fundamental dichotomy" is diabetes integrated care an entity to be developed in itself (i.e., a front line diabetes approach) or should it be simply a product of a system carefully crafted by the health system masters (i.e., waiting for the wider system to become "integrated")? We then describe the components of diabetes integrated care systems reported to date, and compare how and whether different diabetes integrated care approaches dealt with them. The validity of the methods for evaluation is crucial of course, so we make a few comments on how the different projects have been assessed. We fi nalise by trying to build up to suggested foundations for functioning and sustainable diabetes integrated care.