DOC News October 1, 2004
Volume 1 Number 2 p. 9
© 2004 American Diabetes Association
AADE Announces Self-Care Behaviors Program
FLOWSHEET GIVES MEANS TO MONITOR BEHAVIOR CHANGES, EFFECTIVENESS OF
CARE
Kurt Ullman
An effort to give diabetes educators a standard outline to work from was
unveiled at the recent American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE)
annual meeting in Indianapolis.
The AADE 7 Self-Care Behaviors is designed to give diabetes
educators a way to measure change in patient behaviors, determine the
effectiveness of programs at both the practice and individual patient levels,
establish benchmarks for comparisons, and provide a way to measure the
economic and health impacts of diabetes education.
The seven behaviors are healthy eating habits, being active, monitoring
health status, taking medications, problem solving, healthy coping, and risk
reduction.
"Behavior change is a unique outcome measure for diabetes
self-management," said Virginia Valentine, CNS, BC-ADM, CDE, the chief
executive officer of the Diabetes Network in Albuquerque, N.M.
The AADE 7 Self-Care Behaviors are published on a three-part
carbonless flowsheet that is available from the AADE. The educator and patient
meet and use the sheet to prioritize which behaviors are important to that
particular patient. The flowsheet includes areas that allow for
personalization of outcome expectations, interim tracking of changes, and goal
reviews. One sheet is given to the patient and one goes into the medical
record. The third sheet is designed to help with outcome
measurement.
The structured flowsheet makes it easier to measure health outcomes, such
as quality-of-life and patient status issues. It also tracks the effects of
specific interventions, and can be used in the development of practice
guidelines, and to identify high-risk patients.
"Another important aspect of the tool is that it allows for easy
collection of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness data," said Brenda
Broussard, RD, BC-ADM, CDE, owner of Brenda Broussard Consulting in
Albuquerque. "These kind of data are going to become more important in
expanding our scope of practice and justifying payment for our
services."
The AADE 7 Self-Care Behaviors program was specifically
designed to fit in with the National Standard for Diabetes Self-Management
Education requirements. Thus, no additional work is involved with instituting
both programs. The flowsheet also integrates with the National Diabetes
Education Outcome System database.
For further information, visit AADE at
www.aadenet.org
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