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Urban partnerships expand opportunities for diabetes education in rural areas
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AADE Annual Meeting and Exhibition
LAS VEGAS — Connecting with urban medical centers may enable rural practices to increase the number of diabetes educators and simultaneously enhance patients’ access to diabetes education.
During a presentation here, Shannon Calhoun, executive director of the Southeast Texas Health System, said many rural medical facilities have some form of diabetes education, but it is often not conducted by certified diabetes educators and most facilities may not have a curriculum for diabetes self-management training.
When charged with addressing this problem in their own health system, Calhoun and colleagues searched for a program that was reimbursable through various insurers and could be tailored to each practice. They opted to partner with Carondelet Health Network’s Diabetes Care Centers in Tucson, Ariz. Carondelet is a facility that has set up satellite programs to create more certified diabetes educators such as nurses and dietitians in the community, according to Donna Zazworsky, RN, MS, CCM, FAAN, vice president of community health and continuum care at Carondelet. Providers conduct individual and group classes at both the center and via television, for those in rural areas. Carondelet also offers more advanced classes on various topics, such as gestational diabetes, insulin pumps and renal care. The curriculum is taught across Arizona, Texas and New Mexico; one-third of the sites are in rural communities, Zazworsky said.
Implementation occurred in two phases, according to Roxanne Butler, RN, MS, CDE, manager, Diabetes Care Centers. The first involved the turnkey program in which Carondelet helped the sites purchase and obtain materials used in the curriculum, such as workbooks and PowerPoint presentations. Education and training in several areas such as referral forms, data collection and patient evaluations were provided as well, Butler said. Phase two included mentoring and group education on diabetes self-management training so that educators could effectively communicate information to their patients. They also learned about quality improvement measures to ensure that the program is successful.
To integrate a similar system in other practices, Tara Dilley, program coordinator for Diabetes Outpatient Training Sites, said medical centers should “try before they buy” by visiting the urban facility and seeing the program in action. Further, costs associated with the curriculum should be evaluated, as well as basic issues such as funding, scheduling and sustainability.
“There needs to be customization because of regional differences,” Dilley said. “You need to look at what they do and what you need. If you’re happy, then sometimes it’s tweaking or leaving a section out, but it’s whatever works for you.” – by Melissa Foster
For more information:
- Dilley T. S24. Presented at: the American Association of Diabetes Educators; Aug. 3-6, 2011; Las Vegas.
Disclosures: Butler, Calhoun, Dilley and Zazworsky report no relevant financial disclosures.
This session on establishing a rural health partnership with an urban setting for diabetes education was particularly helpful, especially in seeing how the rural site used electronic records and collaboration between a network of small hospitals to achieve excellence in a way that the patient could get the same content in a variety of sites.
– Judith Vance, APRN, CDE
Judith Vance Consulting
Tucson, AZ
Disclosure: Vance reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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