Team diabetes (American College of Physicians annual session)

Physicians wrestle with ways to prevent, control and treat this increasingly occurring disease.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. May 16, 2005.

Reports from conferences important to physicians

When it comes to diabetes care, primary care physicians no longer are being asked to shoulder the burden alone.

In recognition of both the fact that the disease's incidence continues to increase and its management is becoming more complicated, the American College of Physicians launched a $10 million, three-year diabetes project. The initiative aims to improve care by advancing a team-approach model and providing educational tools for physicians, allied health care practitioners and patients.

"To tackle diabetes, we are looking beyond our 116,000 member internists to the health care team as a whole: the medical subspecialists, physician assistants, nurse educators and patients themselves," said ACP President Charles K. Francis, MD.

The project was launched last month at the organization's annual meeting in San Francisco, which also featured 16 educational sessions about various aspects of diabetes care. Practices that participate and demonstrate improvements will receive official ACP recognition. "That will be something they can hang in their practice or use as a measure in pay for performance," said Vincenza Snow, MD, ACP's clinical director for the initiative.

The project is the largest of its kind ever launched by the college and is funded by Novo Nordisk, a manufacturer of diabetes treatments. At the three-year point, ACP hopes to have data showing that the effort improved overall outcomes and generated new ideas for managing the condition.