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Optometrists can do more to fight diabetes
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As many of our long-time readers can attest, Primary Care Optometry News devotes a fair share of editorial content to the subject of diabetes, as does pretty much every other publication in eye care ... or primary care or endocrinology for that matter. This is for good reason.
Diabetes is everywhere, as evidenced by the 23.1 million Americans currently diagnosed with the disease (CDC). What’s even more frightening is the fact that there are 7.2 million undiagnosed diabetics and a staggering 84.1 million pre-diabetics in America — that’s right, more than 91 million Americans who either don’t know they have it or are on their way to developing diabetes.
The American Diabetes Association estimates the condition cost us $327 billion in medical expenses, resource allocation and lost productivity in 2017. As a nation struggling to control escalating health care costs, diabetes represents a potential economic tsunami for America. If the epidemiologists are correct — and I have every reason to believe they are — diabetes could eventually cost us over $1 trillion annually. Can we as a society afford this? I doubt it. Could we sustain this? No. Clearly, the only way we’ll win the battle against diabetes is to get ahead of the disease. Early. With an initiative that requires a concerted effort by all – patients, providers, insurers and public policy makers – to identify those at risk, promptly diagnose and aggressively manage diabetes. We need an “all hands on deck” approach, including optometry.
As optometrists, this is a subject we know all too well, as an estimated one-third of all diabetics older than 40 years of age have some degree of retinopathy (CDC). That doesn’t even consider diabetes’ collateral effects such as ischemic sixth nerve palsy, early cataract and glaucoma. As a profession, we’ve long embraced our role in diabetes management, namely, annual dilated examination and effective communication with primary care physicians and endocrinologists.
Now, however, it is time we do more. To paraphrase our astute colleague and PCON blogger, Scott Edmonds, OD, it’s time optometry embraces a more active role in diabetes management. To Scott’s point, we need to leverage technology for earlier detection, be more vested in patients’ systemic status, and educate, educate, educate. While patients expect to receive advice on diet and lifestyle from their primary care physician, they don’t necessarily expect such from the eye doctor. But they often appreciate and respect it.
In this month’s feature article, “Next-level imaging puts optometry on front line of diabetes diagnosis”, we’ve convened an exceptional group of colleagues, all of whom have embraced the latest technologies in diabetes detection and management. Each provides a compelling and invigorating look at diabetes, offering sage advice on taking detection and monitoring to the next level. I’m sure you’ll agree while our traditional dilated examination remains relevant, there is so much more we can do. Given the magnitude of diabetes, it could very well be the most important thing we do for America’s health care in the years to come.
- References:
- American Diabetes Association. Economic Cost of Diabetes in the U.S in. 2017. 2018;doi.org/10.2337/dci18-0007
- CDC. National Diabetes Statistic Report, 2014. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/2014-report-estimates-of-diabetes-and-its-burden-in-the-united-states.pdf.
- CDC. National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-statistics-report.pdf.