Mission Statement:  To promote training and programs related to diabetes in public and professional communities for the purpose of preventing, controlling, and reducing the impact of diabetes in Michigan.

Introduction:  Advances in research and technology have contributed to ongoing, significant strides in the treatment and self-management of diabetes. For people with diabetes to benefit fully from these advancements, however, health care providers need to continually update their knowledge base. Individuals with diabetes require access to knowledgeable service providers to ensure effective treatment and self-management of their disease.

Minority populations are disproportionately affected by diabetes and its associated complications. Thus, ensuring a culturally competent health care workforce is especially crucial in diabetes treatment and care. Michigan can achieve this goal by focusing recruitment efforts towards minority populations and by providing education cultural competence to all health care providers currently treating people with diabetes.

The Michigan Diabetes Prevention and Control Program (MDPCP) supports a varied array of public, consumer and professional education. These efforts encompass a variety of mediums including, but not limited to the following:

• Independent self-study modules for nurses and dietitians in the principles of diabetes care and emerging topics
• Technical assistance focusing on diabetes standards of care provided by the Diabetes Outreach Networks to individual medical practices
• Sponsorship of conferences
• On-site trainings
• Regional-based newsletters
• Diabetes-focused Web sites

These efforts currently reach a limited audience of health professionals, primarily nurses, some of whom may have repeated exposure. A portion of future programs needs to be geared toward the broader allied health professional group and lay health workers. Michigan should also continue to increase the reach of programs among the nursing and registered dietitian workforce.

The Training and Programs committee prioritized the four recommendations developed during the Strategic Planning process and assigned to this committee as follows:

1. # 12 - Enable the use of diabetes lay health workers.
2. # 11 - Increase the level of evidenced-based clinical knowledge among diabetes service providers.
3. # 13 - Provide quality diabetes pregnancy-related care and education to women.
4. # 14 - Increase the number of ethnically diverse and culturally competent diabetes health care providers.

A work group comprised of representatives from organizations that either currently utilize diabetes lay educators/community health workers or who would be likely to either utilize or interface with them was organized (including diabetes lay educators/community health workers) to address priority number 1, recommendation #12 "Enable the use of diabetes lay health workers" (hereafter referred to as diabetes community health workers DCHW). The work group plans to develop a tool kit for entities seeking to utilize diabetes community health workers. Specific resources and recommendations regarding the following issues will be included in the tool kit:

• A definition for DCHWs and identified roles
• Training Ongoing competency of DCHWs
• Oversight system for DCHWs
• Evaluation methods to measure effectiveness of diabetes community health workers.

Progress so far:

To date, the work group has adopted the American Association for Diabetes Educators’ definition of DCHWs and developed a concise list of role responsibilities. Additionally, the group recommended that training be comprised of a 2 tiered structure: Generic community health worker training utilizing existing programs and curriculums and diabetes specific training. The work group is currently investigating the availability of training. An oversight system for DCHWs is also under current investigation.

The current work group will be disbanded upon completion of objectives for recommendation #12 and new work groups comprised of stakeholders relevant to the specific issues will be developed to address recommendations #11, 13 and 14.