Panel To Share Innovative Digital Ways to Deliver DSMES
Neal Kaufman MD, MPH
When it comes to delivering Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support (DSMES) to patients, diabetes educators know that there are significant challenges to even getting patients to the table for the program. Information overload, busy schedules and ever-shortening attention spans make it harder and harder to get quality diabetes education to patients.
Today’s panel discussion “Finding New Ways to Deliver DSMES to Cut Through the Clutter” will help diabetes educators overcome those challenges by assessing the role digital healthcare technology can play in DSMES and helping identify when digital vs. live coaching is most beneficial.
The session begins at 10:30 am in Room 135-139.
“At the individual level, the person in front of you benefits greatly by being in an effective program and getting the benefits of whatever approach is being used,” said Neal Kaufman MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer & Co-Founder, Canary Health. “But at a population level, the biggest challenges are how to be able to serve tens of thousands of people with programs that work, and how to get them to show up and participate.”
Another challenge is “how do you get people to recognize they have a condition that has a bad prognosis and they may over time develop additional complications or co-morbid states.”
“You slow the inexorable downhill slope of your chronic condition if you get engaged and have the self-efficacy to manage your life, your condition(s), your relationships and your emotions. Then you’ll do much better no matter what educational program you take,” he said.
Dr. Kaufman will use the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) out of Stanford University to describe how when a fundamental and foundational approach to improving self efficacy has been used, diabetes educators can make profound and long-lasting improvements in people’s outcomes.
“So, whether it is the CDSMP or one similar to it, a self-efficacy based framework is important for educators to consider to offer to their patients,” he said.
“The patient can’t become an expert in managing their diabetes in a six week time period, but they can become very committed to improve their health and feel competent and confident they will be able to do what is needed to improve their health and follow clinical orders,” he said.
Dr. Kaufman will be joined on the panel by Scott Johnson, Communications Lead, mySugr and Jennifer Schneider, MD, MS, Chief Medical Officer, Livongo Health. They too will share effective digital delivery modes of DSMES to nix the noise and empower people with diabetes to adopt and sustain healthy behaviors.
“We know that managing diabetes is complex, and we know that we must provide education on nutrition, exercise, and medication,” said Dr. Schneider. “The key is delivering bite-sized nuggets of information that are actionable, real-time, when and where people are engaged in order to create positive reinforcement and lifestyle modifcation. Technology makes this possible – and it’s happening today.”
Dr. Kaufman noted that the common theme across all of the panel’s presentations will be that for the right person at the right time a digital approach can be very effective.
“Digital approaches also have the ability go to scale logistically much easier than in-person programs,” he said, adding that digital delivery can work for a variety of individuals such as those with living far from in-person programs, preference for anonymous group interaction, and 24/7 availability of the program, etc. “The best digital programs transform evidence-based interventions which have been proven effective in-person. There are certainly advantages to the in-person approach but there are also advantages to the digital. Ideally, individuals have the opportunity to choose their delivery channel.”
