A patient-centered interdisciplinary diabetes care model was implemented at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, N.C., a 909-bed tertiary care teaching hospital, for the purpose of providing all patients with diabetes clear and concise instructions on diabetes survival skills. Survival skills education during hospitalization is needed for safe transition to community resources for continued and expanded diabetes self-management education. This article describes the process used to develop, implement, and evaluate the model. This initiative achieved substantial cost savings, with no significant changes in length of stay (LOS) or diabetes readmission rates. This patient-centered model demonstrates how a team of interdisciplinary health care professionals can integrate services in providing care for a large population of patients with chronic disease.
Care paths are known to improve the performance of health care providers in delivering diabetes education. This paper describes the efforts of a rural family practice to implement a provider‐and patient‐focused care path for the improved management of Type 2 diabetes. Dietary and lifestyle advice were included elements in the care path. Family physicians with limited access to dietetic services need to provide more diet and lifestyle advice than other physicians. Patient‐focused care paths are expected to enhance provider‐patient communication and improve patient adherence.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.