Diabetes Education Study Group

Chairman's Report 2003-2004

2003-2004   CHAIRMAN'S REPORT Prof. Aldo Maldonato - September 2004 On the occasion of the 28th Meeting of the General Committee of the Diabetes Education Study Group of the EASD, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Servier, for its continued unconditional support to our Study Group. In particular, I wish to thank Dr Jean-Philippe Seta, Chief Executive Officer, and Dr Laurence Alliot, Director of the Medical Affairs Department. My personal condolences and those of the Executive Committee go to Servier for the untimely loss of Dr Caroline Charlois Comalada, Director of International Scientific Communication. I am very grateful to the members of the Executive Committee: Dr Alain Golay (the Vice President), Dr Ilana Harman-Boehm (the Honorary Treasurer), Dr Andrew Brooks (the Director of Educational Strategies), Dr Rudolf Chlup, and Ms Barbara Semlitsch. I wish to address special thanks to Mr Godfrey Xuereb (the Honorary Secretary), whose term expires this year, for his enthusiastic support and invaluable help to the activities of the Study Group. My warmest thanks also to Ms Nina Bonagura Coscione, in the Rome secretariat. Since the last General Committee meeting, Paris, August 2003, a Workshop of the General Committee has been held, new Teaching Letters and a collection of Patient Education Basics have been published. WORKSHOP OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE MEMBERS A Workshop entitled “New Strategies in Therapeutic Patient Education for Healthy Lifestyle and Diabetes Self-Management” was held in Assisi, Italy, from 17 to 22 January, 2004. The participants were 45 members of the DESG General Committee coming from 25 Countries: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia. During the meeting, main lectures were devoted to an update of our knowledge of weight and eating control, the role of exercise, techniques for COH counting, and intensive insulin treatment with pumps. Group works were then run to develop educational guidelines derived from new evidence, and seek the most effective ways to educate people with diabetes accordingly. Sessions of experiential learning were also run on each topic. During a special lecture, Marco Peruffo, the second person with Type 1 diabetes to reach the top of a 8000 m mountain, mount Cho-Oyu, without oxygen bottles and without high altitude porters, told participants his life history. A comprehensive report of the workshop was recorded on CD, with all the lectures, the pictures of Metaplan boards with group-work results, samples of role-playing sessions, and pictures taken during the workshop. A copy was sent to all participants. PUBLICATION AND UPDATE OF TEACHING LETTERS Two Teaching Letters have been produced this year: No.29 entitled ‘Quality of Life, an Outcome of Diabetes Education’ (new) No.30 entitled ‘Assessing and Improving Quality in Diabetes Education’ (new) The next to be published will be chosen among the original Teaching Letters which have not yet been updated: ‘Approaching the parents of a child with DM’ (update) ‘Nutrition for the child and adolescent’ (update) ‘Preparing for conception, pregnancy and delivery’ (update) ‘Starting on insulin’ (update) These Teaching Letters have been or will be produced with the help of the current sponsor, Servier, and all DESG members will receive copies. They, as well as other DESG productions, are available for consultation and free download on the DESG Website, in Acrobat (.pdf) format. PATIENT EDUCATION BASICS This series of documents on different topics involving basic therapeutic education for people with type 2 diabetes has come to a stop after the publication of PEB No.18 ‘When insulin treatment may be necessary’. A collection of the 18 documents published so far has been prepared with Servier co-operation and, after extensive editorial work, has been published as a 20 page booklet entitled ‘You Have Type 2 Diabetes: Meaning and Implications’. Its aim is to provide an easy-to-use comprehensive educational tool for the Health Care Providers wishing to educate the person with type 2 diabetes, but who are unable to find time for a thorough systematic approach. In a near future, also this document will join the whole series of Patient Education Basics on the DESG Website, becoming available for consultation and free download in Acrobat (.pdf) format. DESG WEBSITE The DESG Website (http://www.desg.org), created by a DESG working group, and officially opened on September 1st, 1999, has completed its fifth year of activity. After the 2003 complete revision it has become an intuitive and easy-to-explore tool for health professionals interested in therapeutic patient education. Its updating and management of feed-backs are performed directly by our secretariat. As before, both the General Committee members' list and the complete list of members are in a restricted area of the site, accessible to members only. The majority of the site is still open and offers a source of information, publications, education tools, and a variety of material produced either by the DESG or by others in the field of therapeutic patient education. In particular, the DESG Teaching Letters, 5-minute survival kit, and Patient Education Basics are published in the “materials” section. From January 1st to August 31st 2004, the average monthly access to the website has been the following: different visitors 979/month; visits 1256/month; pages visited 4949/month; accesses 24858/month. UPDATED LIST OF MEMBERS The updated list consists of 839 members from 85 countries. This list is available in the members’ area of the DESG Website, as well as the list of the General Committee members. Thanks to a pressing joint action of the Honorary Secretary and Rome Secretariat, the number of national representatives in the General Committee has increased this year to 67 and the represented countries to 36. For privacy reasons, only the names and contact information of the Executive Committee members can be viewed by the general public. PARTICIPATION IN PROFESSIONAL TRAINING AND AWARDS Participation in Grimentz Workshops ‘Grimentz Seminars’ represent a unique occasion for in-depth thinking on the specificity of long-term follow-up, and the interactive learning of specific educational skills. The DESG once again provided the funding for a few members’ participation in these workshops, which this year were held in a single edition in Zinal, Valais (CH) in the period 14-19 June, 2004. The workshop was organised by the Division of Therapeutic Education for Chronic Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Geneva University Hospital, chaired by Dr Alain Golay. The seminar was entitled “Motiver nos patients: Augmenter nos compétences pour faciliter le changement chez nos patients”. The participants included about 60 doctors, nurses, psychologists, pedagogues, dieticians, etc. The DESG contributed registration and accommodation expenses of four participants. DESG awards In order to encourage research in the field of therapeutic patient education, two 600.00 Euro awards have been assigned by the DESG to the best abstracts accepted to the 40th EASD Meeting, and one 600.00 Euro award to the best abstract accepted to the Munich FEND Conference. The choice has been made by a DESG commission. As it was done in previous years, the awarded papers will be published on the DESG website. PRESENCE AT THE EASD CONGRESS Joint PSAD-DESG Symposium This year, the DESG has been invited to join the state-of-the-art Symposium of the Psycho-Social Aspects of Diabetes (PSAD) Study group, on Tuesday 7 September, from 8.30 to 10.30. Conversely next year in Athens the PSAD will join the DESG Symposium. During the 2004 Symposium, one lecture out of four has been assigned to the DESG. It was presented by Andrew Brooks with the title: “Concordance and Empowerment: issues in Diabetes education and care”. Stand Like in previous years, a DESG office will be open during the EASD Congress, hosted at the Servier stand. DESG materials and information are available there. SPONSORSHIP OF THE DESG The generous sponsorship of Servier has been confirmed for the next years and continues to be of utmost importance to this Study Group. In addition to the already mentioned Servier Board, I wish to thank particularly dr Bertrand Renaud, Dr Caroline Derville, and dr Nienke Feenstra, who have represented a motivated and capable partnership for the DESG in the last four years. For us all, the wish that this most fruitful co-operation lasts in the coming years. FUTURE ACTIVITIES Workshop of General Committee Members. A 5 day workshop will take place in Assisi (Italy) from 22 to 27 January 2005, to which all national DESG representatives are invited. Like it was the case in the most recent General Committee workshop, the works will be focused on some of the main challenges in the field of TPE. The preliminary program will soon be ready, and I am glad to announce that Bob Anderson, the world famous representative of the Empowerment approach, has accepted to be with us. Implementation of the DESG Curriculum. Based on the needs expressed by the HCPs, and the modular structure proposed by the DESG, several Step 3 Curriculum implementations have taken place or are being planned in several countries. So far we are aware of Step 3 implementations of the DESG Curriculum in UAE, Austria, Israel, Italy (done in 2003-04, planned for 2004-05). New Teaching Letters will be conceived by group-work, and will then be published. The new improved DESG Website will keep being used as a very functional tool for patient education and communication for the health care providers involved in diabetes therapeutic education. The promotion of research and training in therapeutic patient education will be continued, also by means of grants and awards. The DESG will play a role in the organisation of “Therapeutic Patient Education 2000s: Second International Congress on Self-Management Education for Diabetes and Other Chronic Diseases” which will take place in Rome, Nov 30-Dec 3, 2005. Preliminary information on the Congress is available at www.kenes.com/tpe2005.

 

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