by Stephanie Laird

The Appalachian Rural Health Institute’s Diabetes/Endocrine Center was recently awarded the prestigious American Diabetes Association (ADA) Education Recognition Certificate for their diabetes self-management education program. Earning ADA recognition means that a program has received the ADA stamp of approval for its high-quality diabetes self-management education — an important facet of diabetes treatment — for the patients it serves.

“It feels wonderful to finally have the approval,” exclaimed Barbara Nakanishi, program coordinator and certified diabetes educator. “You can take a deep breath and celebrate for a day, but now I have to look forward to the work I need to do. I am looking forward to working with other departments and professors on future projects.”

Assuring high-quality education for patient self-care and promoting increased knowledge and awareness of diabetes are central components of ADA-approved programs because these enable patients to take more responsibility for the management of their disease.

According to Nakanishi, some of the standards that a program must satisfy include “continuous quality improvement projects and the establishment of an advisory committee that meets once a year to look at the yearly goals of your program. The committee also looks at any quality improvement that you’ve done, approves the curriculum we have, and make suggestions for future changes.”

Another stipulation for recognition requires that a program — over a six-month period — collect data on the number of patients that were seen and submit information regarding their diagnosis, age, ethnicity, demographics and cultural background. The ADA requires a program to gather such information when seeking approval in order to establish a snapshot of what the program has done over a six-month window and to assess its target audience.

The following topics are covered by all programs: diabetes disease process; nutritional management; physical activity; medications; monitoring; preventing, detecting, and treating acute complications; preventing, detecting, and treating chronic complications through risk reduction; goal setting and problem solving; psychological adjustment; and preconception care, management during pregnancy and gestational management.

“The process of certification give professionals a national standard by which to measure the quality of services they provide,” comments Nakanishi.

“And, of course, it assures the consumer that he or she will likely receive high-quality service.”

Education recognition status is verified by an official certificate from the ADA and is awarded for three years.

According to the ADA, there are 20.8 million people or seven percent of the population in the United States who have diabetes, nearly one third of these Americans are undiagnosed. Each day more than 3,500 people are diagnosed with diabetes. Many will first learn that they have diabetes when they are treated for one of its life-threatening complications — heart disease and stroke, kidney disease, blindness, and nerve disease and amputation. About 1.3 million people will be diagnosed with diabetes this year. Diabetes is the fifth-deadliest disease in the United States, and it has no cure. Based on death certificate data, diabetes contributed to more than 213,062 deaths in 2000.

For more information contact Suzanna Theodoras, R.N., at (740) 593-2453.