I was honored to be at the Public Policy Forum in Chicago last week with Pat Adams. An abundance of material was covered - this is as brief as I could be from the pile of notes I accumulated: THIS FORUM WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR YOUR VIEW ON THE AADE WEBSITE.
Our AADE President Hope Warsaw welcomed us with a motivational message of "Chronic Advocacy"- She encouraged us to get involved and support our legislators in order to have a voice to protect our patients and our careers. Who is talking for us? If we don't speak up our futures will be formed from someone else who does.
Charles Macfarland, AADE CEO amd Kurt Anderson - AADE Director of Federal and State Advocacy- The purpose of the forum is to equip the attendees with tools to advocate. There are many advocacy issues at the State and Federal levels. AADE can provide us with the tools to advocate for issues that are important for our patients and our careers. Check the AADE website for information you need or contact them for specifics.
The former Governer of Illinois Pat Quinn,delivered the inspirational Keynote Address; He shared his experience of his "Walk accross Illinois" to encourage people to walk and get involved with improving their health and their community. He actually walked accross Illinois and they also had a program that encouraged people to walk this distance. When they reported thier mileage they were mailed a certificate from the Governor. He quoted Margaret Mead " Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." We can develop similiar initiatives in our communities :) "Where there is no vision - people parrish - proverbs.
Susan Dentzer President and CEO of the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation introduced us to " The New World of Advancing Health and Managing Chronic Illness: The Force Awakens with a very clever Star Wars Analogy. Since 2013 Americans are Dying at younger ages than other countries. 84% of US health care $ is spent on Chronic diseases. The greatest increase in mortality are with those who have the least education. Local Policies matter in health care - per a 2016 JAMA article from Chetly et al. Chronic Disease is caused by: 30% behaviors; 20% clinical care; 40% socieoeconomic and 10% Physical Environment. "Housing is Healthcare" 50% of Health care costs are related to 5% of patients.There has been an awakening - hope is not lost - THE FORCE IS CALLING YOU - LET IT IN!
Kurt Anderson joined Bab Babbage(Babbage cofounder) and Mary Ann Hodorowicz, RD,MBA, CDE,CEC, Consultant for "Introduction to State-Based Issues and Politics". Please see AADE website for details on issues; also check diabetesPAC.org ; DSME saves $135/month in health care cost. Patient w DM has 2.3X the health care cost of average person without DM. Medicare patients: Pharmacy MUST fill the prescription that the MD wrote for testing supplies - if they don't please let AADE know. (The compeitive bidding situation will get worse in July as there will be only 6-7 suppliers nationwide) We must keep the conversation for advocacy going in all venues of our patients care.
Deborah Outlaw from the Outlaw Group spoke on the Federal Diabetes Legislative landscape: Access to Quality Diabetes Educatio Act is the #1 Priority - this must pass this year - Currently the RD and RN amoungst other specialties are recognized in 1345/HR1726.- Diabetes Educators need to exist in the statute- we need to be recognized as THE provider of quality care. DSMT could save 2 Billion aver 10 years. Enjoyed her humor:THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONGRESS AND HOLLYWOOD?.HOLLYWOOD ONLY HAS 3 STOOGIES :) .
Debra joined Kurt and Bob in a discussion on Building In-District Relationships - Keep the converstaion going
Manny Hernandez of Livango Health spoke for "The Value of Patient Advocacy Group Collaboration" - pnly 0.007% of a patients time is spent with a Diabetes Care Professional; Group collaboration is key to longterm management success. Please see "Diabetes Hands Foundation" for the great work Manny is doing - you can also follow his blogs; add "Diatribe", "DiabetsPAC.org", "College Diabetes Network", Children with Diabetes to your patient resources.
Hope and Melissa Joy Dobbins Ms, RDn, CDE of Sound Bites,Inc. discussed "Why and How You and Your CD should Engage in Social Media; lets all start Blogging, using facebook, tweet,etc. to get the message out of what we can do as CDEs
Michael Tryon discussed How to Work with Your State Legislators on Diabetes Issues
Diabetes Educator State Licensure Member Perspectives were discissed by dedicated members from Florida (Bridget Jennings), Indiana(Jasmine Gonzalo) , Kentucky(Kim Decoste) and Pennsylvania(Paticia Adams) These members have worked diligently to try to create a process that protects patients. This was a very interactive discussion with many questions from the group. While it has been established that creating effective legislation is like making sausage (nobody wants to watch) there remains concern that we may not yet have the ingredients to form the "links" for successful protection of the patient. Let's remember the tortoise and the hare....
We are all advocates - let's speak up to protect our patients and our careers.