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.
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News for
the week of Oct
24 –
Oct 29
