I have been familiar with Riva’s amazing work as an advocate for people with diabetes for years now. I was able to finally meet Riva at the last AADE meeting in San Diego where Riva, educators from Hong Kong, and I had a great lunch together. Our conversation was very special for us, as diabetes educators. We talked with Riva not as a person with diabetes (PWD), but as our teacher, our mentor and our educator. We wanted Riva to help us become better educators, we wanted to learn from a PWD and create a true concordance. This blog is special as I can share the learning with you. Enjoy the read!

This blog will be short and sweet….. Just like all of the moments I would like to reflect upon and share my gratitude to our team. Gratitude is for all of this year's interactions with an amazing group of people.Someone once said that simplicity is the ultimate satisfaction. Simplicity is also part of the moments that create happiness in our daily living. A simple ‘Feel good’ moment does not always happen when someone is saying something smart, but rather when I realize that I was understood, respected and accepted!

We are delighted to feature Erum and Erin as the advocates of a person with diabetes (PWD). PWD contemplate over 200 additional decisions in an average day, compared to one without diabetes. Erin has been living with diabetes since her childhood, and Erum since young adulthood. Both have a lot of wisdom that I have learned as a healthcare provider. Erum and Erin are teachers about diabetes and leaders. They are part of IDF Young Leaders who mentor and support other kids and young adults with diabetes. September is all about awareness of kids living with medical conditions. That said, I would like to celebrate, reflect and inspire not only kids living with diabetes, but healthcare professionals partnering with the journey.

Like diabetes, Pokémon has been around for a while now but has revamped with a new innovative strategy -- Pokémon Go. The innovation is all part of augmented reality (AR), the practice of overlaying digital images on the real world via smartphones screen. With diabetes, that reality is the extension of real world daily tasks that people with diabetes (PWD) need to do to get their glucose under control. It is like living in a game of immediate decision making related to food, physical activity, medication, pain, discomfort, stress, unexplained increased in glycaemia, and all that is required to meet one's’ daily self-management goals.

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.

Diabetes self-management is a careful balance of taking medications, eating well-balanced meals, engaging in physical activity, stress monitoring, and symptom management, among other daily tasks. As certified diabetes educators (CDE), we are all involved in helping our patients balance everything best meet their disease management goals. Pharmacists are also an important part of diabetes self-management education and support (DSME/S), doing so much more than just dispensing medications.

Technology was the tipping point in it all: insulin pumps, glucose meters and continuous glucose monitoring started it all for us. Pattern management is the way to take the numbers and create actions to correct the abnormal and proactively develop a plan to anticipate the future. By looking at these patterns, we determine changes to the treatment plan. Medication, food, physical activity, stress, and illness all contribute to changes in glucose management.

“Necessity is the mother of invention…” A few months ago I was chatting with the CEO one of our health system customers using the Healthy Interactions diabetes patient education program with their patients. “Paul, we are thrilled with the results of the diabetes program. Our patients with diabetes are more engaged with significantly better outcomes. We have improved at-risk contracts performance and improved quality measures. My challenge is, how do we get more patients enrolled into the programs? How do we fill the funnel to the top?”

Shared decision making (SDM) is all about learner-centered approaches; it allows for the patient to own his/her disease management in a way that produces desirable clinical care outcomes.