Foundation Diabetes Goals and Key Initiatives
Foundation Goals
NYSHealth has launched a five-year, $35 million campaign to reverse the diabetes epidemic in New York State. “The New York State Diabetes Campaign: Reversing the Epidemic” will work to improve clinical care, mobilize communities, and promote policy.
Improving Clinical Care
The Campaign will work with the three major types of primary care providers in New York State to improve the care they are able to give to their patients with diabetes: community health centers, individual private practices, and hospital outpatient departments. NYSHealth will support technical assistance to providers to develop or enhance community linkages and achieve recognition under the National Committee on Quality Assurance’s (NCQA’s) Diabetes Physician Recognition Program. The NCQA program requires physicians to adopt seven standard practices that characterize high-quality clinical diabetes management and to demonstrate that they implement these practices.
Mobilizing Communities
NYSHealth will work to build on existing community resources community- and faith-based organizations, worksites, and pharmacies to strengthen their capacity to implement and expand and diabetes screening and management, provide services to enhance continuity of care, and increase access to diabetes prevention and management resources. We will engage community leaders to advance communitywide policy changes for better access to healthy foods and physical activity. NYSHealth also will seek to support programs that expand, sustain, and further evaluate the role of community health workers in diabetes management and prevention. NYSHealth will target initiatives that have an impact on a large number of people.
Promoting Policy
NYSHealth has established a Diabetes Policy Center that will conduct and fund policy analysis and advocacy to support private and public payment policies that sustain a comprehensive, coordinated care system for patients with diabetes. The Center also will promote public health policies such as making nutritious foods and recreation spaces more available throughout the State, with a particular focus on the neighborhoods hardest hit with the diabetes epidemic.
Campaign Leadership
Dr. Neil Calman, President and CEO of the Institute for Family Health, will lead the Campaign in partnership with NYSHealth. The Institute provides high-quality health care to underserved populations; sponsors innovative training programs for health professionals; engages in primary care health services research; and participates in health policy development at the national, State, and local levels. The organization is committed to eliminating disparities in health outcomes, and using health information technology to improve public health.
Key Foundation Initiatives
Through a combination of open requests for proposals and solicited grants, NYSHealth will identify, engage, and provide grants to “node” organizations throughout the State that will drive change among their members or constituencies. As part of this wholesale approach, each node will provide technical assistance, communicate and disseminate information, and develop and foster learning networks.
- Improving Diabetes Care at New York State Community Health Centers: The Community Health Care Association of New York State will build the foundation of improving diabetes care at community health centers by: 1) assessing baseline diabetes clinical indicators for community health centers (CHCs); 2) assessing the capacity of CHCs to manage diabetes; 3) identifying national diabetes best practices in CHCs; and 4) identifying five CHCs demonstrating best practices around diabetes management and supporting its National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) recognition for diabetes care.
- Additional node organizations will be selected in 2008 through an invitation-only process.
To initiate this Campaign, NYSHealth awarded $3.71 million in 2007 to health centers, community groups, and health care institutions as part of the Setting the Standard: Advancing Best Practices in Diabetes Management request for proposals. The goal of Setting the Standard is to begin to advance the spread of best practices in diabetes management among early adopters in New York State’s primary care system and to establish them as the universal standard of care for patients with diabetes. In addition, Setting the Standard supports initiatives that will demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of these best practices and promote systems change that will integrate, expand, and sustain comprehensive care for patients with diabetes.
Among projects funded:
- Integrated Wellness: Improving the Assessment and Management of Type II Diabetes in Adults with Serious Mental Illness: Institute for Community Living will work with six partner agencies—all mental health service providers—to develop and implement diabetes screening, assessment, education, prevention, self-management and care coordination activities into existing behavioral health practice settings.
- Diabetes Center of Community Excellence: Jericho Road Ministries will work toward (1) embedding minority certified diabetes educator trainees into community practice, and (2) establishing a Diabetes Health Ministry Outreach Resource Center among five participating churches.
- CUNY Campaign Against Diabetes: The City University of New York have selected three college campuses to develop, pilot test, and evaluate: (a) campus-wide prevention campaign to make healthier food and more physical activity available on campus and to encourage behavior change; (b) diabetes management workshops for students with family members with diabetes; (c) education/support groups for students and faculty with or at risk of diabetes.
