American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) proposes to disseminate Patient Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR)/Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) on diabetes care to a national audience of diabetes educators (DE's). DE's provide patients with instruction on self- care behaviors and promote patient compliance with recommended treatment, including medication adherence, self-monitoring, diet, exercise, and risk reduction behaviors. DE's can assist patients in understanding treatment options and making informed health care decisions. In order to perform these roles successfully, DE's must be knowledgeable about the effectiveness of treatment options for diabetes and related conditions and competent in discussing these options with patients and within the healthcare team. AADE will initially focus on disseminating the AHRQ-produced CER on pre-mixed insulin analogues and the CER on oral medications for type 2 diabetes. AADE will evaluate the uptake of this information among DE's, including their utilization of AHRQ clinician and consumer summaries;measure change in DE's knowledge of the comparative effectiveness of diabetes medications;and assess DE's need for additional education on CER/PCOR. Based on this assessment, and input of a multi-disciplinary PCOR Advisory Panel, AADE will disseminate PCOR/CER on other diabetes care topics, related conditions, and chronic disease management over the course of the three-year project. Dissemination efforts will accommodate various learning preferences of the target audience and will range from activities that utilize traditional methods (live meetings and articles in print publications) to activities that employ newer technologies (on-line Communities of Interest, podcasts, and blogs). AADE will provide both web-based and live continuing education to DE's on PCOR/CER. AADE will measure and report participation, satisfaction, change in knowledge, and change in competence, including DEs'self-reported change in practice. Focus groups will be utilized to gather qualitative input on DE's application of PCOR/CER to practice. AADE will also build PCOR infrastructure within the field of diabetes education by developing guidelines and tools for translating PCOR/CER to practice for a career spectrum of DE's, ranging from entry level workers to advanced level diabetes practitioners/clinical managers.
Diabetes educators provide diabetes self-management education (DSME) to persons with diabetes. The proposed project will disseminate comparative effectiveness research/patient centered outcomes research to a multi-disciplinary target audience of diabetes educators, and provide instruction to diabetes educators on how to utilize the results of this type of research in their practice, advise patients on their diabetes care options, and improve quality of care. The project has the potential to impact informed decision-making, quality of care, and health outcomes among persons with diabetes, a chronic disease currently impacting more than 25.8 million Americans. Full details of the project implementation plan are included in the submitted Research Strategy.
