Bassett Expands Diabetes Education And Earns Accreditation

Bassett Medical Center has expanded access to critical diabetes education services throughout Bassett Healthcare Network, and Bassett’s program was recently named an accredited diabetes education program by the American Association of Diabetes Educators.

“We have more than 11,000 patients within Bassett Healthcare Network living with diabetes,” notes Diane Cusworth, M.S., R.N., who oversees Bassett’s Diabetes Management Program. “By helping them understand how their lifestyle impacts the disease and what they can do to improve their health, we hope to prevent some of the common complications associated with diabetes such as heart attacks, kidney disease, amputations and blindness. We want our patients to have the best quality of life possible.”

Diabetes education is a collaborative process through which people with or at risk for diabetes gain the knowledge and skills needed to modify behavior and successfully self-manage the disease and its related conditions. Bassett’s diabetes educators meet with patients at regional health centers throughout Bassett’s eight county service area to make it as convenient as possible for patients to get the help they need to manage their disease.
“Trends show that diabetes education is moving out of the hospital and into the community, so AADE’s accreditation program was created, in part, to encourage diabetes education where the patient is seeking care,” said Leslie E. Kolb, RN, BSN, MBA, Program Director, Diabetes Education Accreditation Program. “Bassett’s diabetes education program is exactly what we envisioned when we set up our accreditation program in 2009.”

Diabetes education is one component of Bassett’s comprehensive Diabetes Management Program, a multi-faceted approach to improving the care of diabetic patients by:
 teaching patients to better self manage their disease through classes with registered nurses, a registered dietician and an exercise physiologist;
 providing them with the tools and information necessary for self-management;
 arranging for diabetes educators to work with patients to individualize their care and goals;
 encouraging collaboration with primary care providers and dieticians to optimize the management of diabetic patients, and;
 improving access to physicians/providers.

Nearly 400,000 adults in upstate New York, 77,000 of whom live in central New York, have been diagnosed with diabetes. That’s according to the American Diabetes Association, which also reports an estimated annual treatment cost of $2.5 billion.

The program currently has five diabetes educators and a nurse practitioner who visit eight sites throughout the network to work with diabetic patients so that they can learn to manage their disease to the best of their ability. The Bassett clinics offering the services of the diabetes educators are located in Cooperstown, Herkimer, Little Falls, Canajoharie, Delhi, Sidney, Walton and Cobleskill. But patients visiting any Bassett Healthcare Network facility may request diabetes education by calling 607-547-3300.