Population management is increasingly invoked as an approach to improve the quality and value of diabetes care. Recent emphasis is driven by increased focus on both costs and measures of care as the US moves from fee for service to payment models in which providers are responsible for costs incurred, and outcomes achieved, for their entire patient population. The capacity of electronic health records (EHRs) to create patient registries, apply analytic tools, and facilitate provider- and patient-level interventions has allowed rapid evolution in the scope of population management initiatives. However, findings on the efficacy of these efforts for diabetes are mixed, and work remains to achieve the full potential of an-EHR based population approach. Here we seek to clarify definitions and key domains, provide an overview of evidence for EHR-based diabetes population management, and recommend future directions for applying the considerable power of EHRs to diabetes care and prevention.