Improving Diabetes Care for First Nations

The impact of diabetes on First Nations (FN) is well known and is compounded by limited community front-line health care. The RADAR study (Reorganizing the Approach to Diabetes through the Application of Registries), aims to improve clinical care of clients with diabetes through the use of an integrated diabetes registry/electronic medical records system and centralized care coordinator service that will support front-line community health workers in transforming care for FN diabetes patients (e.g. identify and manage care gaps, manage and coordinate referrals, provide education).

Dr. Dean Eurich was profiled in the 2016 AIHS e-newsletter for the RADAR study.

By: DT Eurich, L Wozniak and S Salamani

The impact of diabetes on First Nations (FN) is well known and is compounded by limited community front-line health care. The RADAR study (Reorganizing the Approach to Diabetes through the Application of Registries), jointly funded by Alberta Innovates and CIHR aims to improve clinical care of clients with diabetes through the use of an integrated diabetes registry/electronic medical records system and centralized care coordinator service that will support front-line community health workers in transforming care for FN diabetes patients (e.g. identify and manage care gaps, manage and coordinate referrals, provide education). One large FN community has already been recruited from each of Alberta’s 3 treaty areas. A comprehensive assessment of the program will be completed based on the RE-AIM framework which was designed to assess health interventions beyond effectiveness to include multiple criteria to determine public health impact and transferability. The framework consists of five dimensions: Reach into the target population; Effectiveness of the intervention; Adoption by target settings, institutions and staff; Implementation, including consistency and cost of delivery; and Maintenance of intervention effects over time. The project is innovative as it involves public (the communities), academia (U of A) and private sector (Okaki Health Intelligence) partnerships to improve the care for FN diabetes patients.