Information tools helping to combat diabetes

Smart uses of information and technology in the management of diabetes are highlighted in a new report on progress in combating the disease.

The report, Turning the Corner: Improving Diabetes Care, is a review of the national service framework for diabetes’ implementation.

National clinical director for diabetes, Dr Sue Roberts, says there have been real improvements in a number of areas since the framework was introduced. She says new tools such as DiabetesE, the Quality and Outcomes Framework and the National Diabetes Audit are helping to establish a baseline to measure improvements in diagnosis and care.

“We now know what the challenges are and it is up to all of us to respond to them,” she says in her introduction.

Initiatives supported by technology cited in the report include the Slough Project, a drive to improve care in an area with a high black and ethnic minority population more prone to developing diabetes.

Project leaders worked with Dr Foster Intelligence on a computer programme that combines information about hospital admissions and medical treatment for certain conditions with data on the socio-economic background of a particular area’s population.

“This is a tool that can identify where Asian businesses are, what television programmes they read, what newspapers they read – even what cars they drive, according to diabetes specialist nurse, Grace Vanterpool, who is quoted in the report.

She explained: “Our work with Dr Foster allows us to combine what we know about health statistics with what they know about broader social demographics. If we know that people from the Pakistani community listen to a particular radio programme or hire videos from a certain shop, we know those are good places to put health information.”

Salford Primary Care Trust’s Pro-active Call Centre Treatment Support (PACCTS) is also offered as an exemplar of innovative care. The initiative used an information and communications technology platform to investigate whether proactive contact centre based communication between health professionals and patients with type 2 diabetes could enable better self-management and blood glucose control.

Similarly, the OwnHealth Project covering two PCTs in Birmingham and run by Pfizer Health Solutions, is using regular telephone support at home from trained community nurses as the model to help patients with diabetes and other to long term conditions to be directly involved in the management of their care.

The report says that electronic records will have an enormous benefit in ensuring that relevant information for each individual is available whenever and wherever they are seen. It highlights the work of Connecting for Health’s “Do once and share” project which is developing a diabetes record with a far broader scope than the conventional record of physical health.

Link

Turning the Corner: Improving Diabetes Care