The purpose of this blog is to showcase how diabetes educators can expand their scope by providing COPD and CHF self-management education. For starters, let me introduce myself; I am Nick Armes, a Business Analyst at Healthy Interactions. I’ve been here over a year, having come from Lilly diabetes, as well as Cardiovascular divisions. I’m passionate about patient education because as a former drug rep I saw everyday that patients did not understand their conditions, diseases, or problems - they just wanted a pill to fix everything. Through Lilly’s Sales University, I began to better understand the anatomy and physiology behind diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and I think everyone who has these conditions would benefit from better understanding as to how the disease occurs, how it affects them, and what they can do to prevent or improve their own situation.

Learning about diabetes is a process. In school, we are given a lesson that results in a test versus with diabetes, we are given a test that teaches us a lesson. As diabetes educators, we use situational problem solving as one of the approaches to help patients figure out solutions to their challenges.