Being on the PA CB certainly has its perks! In October we convened to plan the 7th Annual PA AADE convention. It is quite the experience to have a seat at the table with some of the best minds and most experienced of CDE's in the State. The ideas and the dropping begins...
First we choose a theme and the determine who is the best of the best and yet charitable enough to share their vision and knowledge with us. This year we chose what's new and the latest headlines; i.e. technology, population health and new medications.
Kellie Antinori-Lent is a wealth of experience and knowledge and she didn't disappoint with her 174 slide presentation on "Helping Your Pump Patients to Soar" . The algorithms and practical tips supplied the new and seasoned practitioners with pearls of best practice ideas all delivered in a thoughtful, professional and genuine presentation.
Linda Siminerio never leaves a dry eye in the house as she unravels decades of practice starting as a child of a parent with Type1 diabetes and following her first patient from birth to 40 years old who, although an amputee at 8 months, went on to live a full and purposeful healthy life with diabetes. She has been on the front lines of population health since it started as the Chronic Care Initiative in 2009 then Patient Centered Medical Home. This concept of value versus volume based care has now exploded to the point where MACRA and MIPS have included diabetes metrics in salaries and incentive bonuses for HCP's who can improve patient outcomes and reduce complications of chronic diseases, especially diabetes. Linda is a tireless crusader for CDE's because she has witnessed how education, knowledge and behavior change can impact the quality of life of a person with diabetes especially if treated within a multidisciplinary group or team approach. We await the results of her most recent study which will be published by June, 2018.
One of the most engaging speakers with a fabulous sense of humor was Pharmacist Lenore Coleman from Merck who discussed the issues with medication adherence in patients with chronic disease. She shared screening tools and the type of questions to ask to get patients with diabetes to answer honestly about how frequently they skip or miss their meds. She emphasized that 30% of patients never fill their first injection prescription. She put the onus on the CDE's to make this our business to change this statistic.
Angela Forfia provided guidance in an engaging and entertaining presentation on enrolling for the Diabetes Prevention Program and she is certain to increase the involvement of the CDE in this initiative with her "take no prisoners" approach.
Scott Drab provided an extensive pharmacological and biochemistry review on the mechanisms of actions of some of the newer GLP-1 Receptor agonists on the market as well as the CVOT data for Victoza and Jardiance. He went on to discuss SGLT-2's and the newer concentrated insulins. Most of the participants were wiped out from this intense yet highly informative presentation!
NightScout and Me was one of my favorites as Donny Swarmer discussed his impatience with FDA approval of CGM information while he is trying to live his life and learn more about his disease. He shared info about this website for other impatient tekkies!
Lilly dinner program showed the efficacy of U500 for patients requiring high doses.
Probably the highlight of the day was the panel discussion sponsored by Insulet Corp/OmniPod on "Sex, PODS and Rock-n-Roll". An open and honest discussion about the topics no one usually talks about.
It was amazing!
Again, I am honored and humbled to be a member of the PACB and hope I can rise to the challenge of planning an event as excellent as this one held at the fabulous Bedford Springs Resort where the food, atmosphere and company were all top shelf.