II PAHO-DOTA Workshop on Quality of Diabetes Care

(Diabetes Research Institute/DRI, University of Miami, 14–16 May 2003)

Final Report
(33 pp, PDF, 1292 KB; Table of Contents links to chapters)

Diabetes Research Institute (DRI)

Presentations (PowerPoint)
by organization
- PAHO: Introduction (441 KB)
- Successful Interventions (282 KB)
- The Diabetes Care Model (170 KB)
- DRI: Interventions to Improve Quality of Care (1957 KB)
- Primary-Care Providers (chart, 40 KB)
- CDC: Reducing the Burden of Diabetes (4496 KB)
Subregional
- Caribbean Food & Nutrition Institute (CFNI) (853 KB)
By country
Aruba (387 KB)   |   Jamaica (226 KB)
Monserrat (90 KB)   |   Suriname (835 KB)

PAHO Diabetes Page | Diabetes Atlas

Diabetes care and education are among the most important aspects in the fight against diabetes. Improvement in diabetes control is linked to better quality of life and survival. One of the most important challenges for public health in the field of diabetes is to monitor quality of care with the aim of introducing measures to assure better outcomes.

This second workshop of the PAHO-DOTA Quality-of-Care Project took place in Miami on 14–16 May 2003, with the participation of health officials from seven Caribbean countries. Health professionals from PAHO, the United States, Canada, and Argentina also participated. Objectives were as follows:

• Review the status of quality care for people with diabetes in the Caribbean.
• Discuss the result of the evaluation of quality of care in Jamaica, St. Lucia and the Bahamas.
• Review strategies to improve quality of care for people with diabetes.
• Define an action plan for improvement of quality of diabetes care in the Caribbean.

Participants reviewed results of the quality-of-care evaluation in centers from the Bahamas and Jamaica, and from two hospitals in St. Lucia. The results of this project indicated that diabetes care needs to be improved in the participating sites as well as in the Caribbean as a region. During the Health Technology Assessment exercise, country officials were able to choose priorities for future development:

• Community linkages ranked high in most countries' assessments, with 3 countries (Aruba, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago) out of 7 selecting it as a priority.
• Self-management support—in terms of educational programs, food care, and nutrition management—was selected by Barbados and St. Lucia, while Bahamas selected decision support as the focus of future projects.
• When ranking activities as a group, a viable information system was selected as the top priority. Participants felt that a clinical information system was needed to support other components included in the model.
• The second priority selected for future development was self-management diabetes education.

The Declaration of the Americas on Diabetes has defined standards and norms for diabetes education programs in the Diabetes Atlas. These standards can be used to implement, monitor and evaluate new initiatives.