ALTON – Alton Memorial Hospital’s Diabetes Management office has earned the prestigious American Diabetes Association Education Recognition Certificate. The ADA believes that this program offers high-quality education that is an essential component of effective diabetes treatment.
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The Association’s Education Recognition Certificate assures that educational programs meet the national standards for diabetes self-management education programs.
“The process gives professionals a national standard by which to measure the quality of services we provide,” said Lisa James, diabetes educator at AMH. “And, of course, it assures the consumer that he or she will receive high-quality service.”
Education Recognition status is verified by an official certificate from ADA and awarded for four years.
Self-management education is an essential component of diabetes treatment. One consequence of compliance with the national standards is the greater consistency in the quality and quantity of education offered to people with diabetes. The participant in a recognized program will be taught, as needed, self-care skills that will promote better management of his or her diabetes treatment regimen. All approved education programs cover 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; and 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 American Diabetes Association, there are 29.1 million people -- or 9.3 percent of the population in the United States -- who have diabetes. While an estimated 21 million people have been diagnosed, 8.1 million people are not aware that they have this disease. Each day more than 3,900 people are diagnosed with diabetes. Many will first learn that they have diabetes when they are treated for one of its life-threatening complications – heart disease and stroke, kidney disease, blindness, and nerve disease and amputation.
For more information about diabetes education at Alton Memorial, call Lisa James at 618-463-7526.
