Diabetes Conversation Maps: a tool to help doctors help patients

Dubai: There was a marked focus on educating the medical community on how to deal with patients diagnosed with diabetes, especially in the use of insulin, during the Emirates Diabetes and Endocrine Congress on October 11, 2012.

As part of diabetes education in primary care centres and hospitals, patients need to be informed and advised, said Fadia Doumani, Lilly Diabetes lead educator for the Gulf and Near East region, speaking to Gulf News.

“It is not enough to tell a patient he has diabetes and give him medication. He needs to understand the disease and its complications. He needs to know the demands of diabetes on his lifestyle. The doctor may have little time to this, shifting the focus to nurse educators who are trained to educate diabetic patients,” she said.

To help nurse educators help patients with the challenge of living with diabetes, one of the tools available is the Diabetes Conversation Map, developed by international medical education agency Healthy Interactions with the support of the International Diabetes Federation and sponsored by Lilly Diabetes.

The map provides a step by step, visual and interactive guide for nurses when they are advising patients how better understand and manage their disease on a daily basis, Doumani added.