Frisbie’s Diabetes & Endocrine Center has been Recognized by the American Diabetes Association for Quality Diabetes Self-Management Education & Support. The ADA’s Education Recognition Certificate assures that educational services meet the National Standards for Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support (DSMES). Services that achieve Recognition status have a staff of knowledgeable health professionals who can provide state-of-the-art information about diabetes management for participants.
Self-management education is an essential component of diabetes treatment. Through the support of the health care team and increased knowledge and awareness of diabetes, the person with diabetes can assume a major part of the responsibility for his or her diabetes management. The participant in an ADA Recognized service will be taught, as needed, self-care skills that will promote better management of his or her diabetes treatment regimen. All ADA-approved education services develop individualized participant education plans that include any of the following topics as needed:
- 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
- Preconception care, management during pregnancy, and gestational management
Unnecessary hospital admissions and some of the acute and chronic complications of diabetes may be prevented through self-management education.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) 2017 National Diabetes Statistic Report, there are 30.3 million people, or 9.4% of the population in the United States, who have diabetes. While an estimated 23.1 million have been diagnosed, unfortunately, 7.2 million people are not aware that they have this disease. Each day, more than 4,100 Americans are diagnosed with diabetes. Many will first learn that they have diabetes when they are treated for one of its life-threatening complications, including heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, nerve disease, and amputation. Diabetes continues to be the seventh leading cause of death in the US. In 2015, it contributed to 252,806 deaths. The ADA’s Economic Costs of Diabetes in the US in 2017 confirms diabetes as the nation’s most expensive chronic health care condition at $327 billion.