Lumetra Insights
September 2009
The 2009 California Diabetes Summit took place in Sacramento on September 2-3. Organized by the California Diabetes Program, the meeting attracted over 200 healthcare professionals. Meeting presentations and materials are posted on the Summit Web site.
Rebecca Olson, Lumetra Senior Scientist in the Scientific Analysis department, reported these highlights:
- Keynote speakers included Ann Albright, PhD, RD, Director, Division of Diabetes Translation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Dean Schillinger, MD, Chief, California Diabetes Program at the Department of Public Health and UCSF Professor of Medicine; and Linda Rudolph, MD, MPH, Deputy Director, Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at CDPH.
- All keynote speakers stressed the need to focus on diabetes prevention, rather than just improving diabetes care. Although quality improvement and HIT efforts have improved diabetes care, the burden of diabetes complications (blindness, kidney failure, etc.) is exploding due to an epidemic of new diabetes cases.
- Wide disparities in diabetes incidence, complications, and healthcare still exist in California.
- Clinics and physician practices interested in a user-friendly transition tool for electronically monitoring chronic disease healthcare should check out the Chronic Disease Electronic Management System, which is a free registry for managing and reporting on patients with chronic health conditions.