Quality Improvement Corner

By Nancy O’Banion, MS, Quality Improvement Director

Increasing the Number of Newly Diagnosed Diabetes Patients Who Complete Initial Diabetes SelfManagement Education and Support (IDSMES)

Diabetes Self-Management Education is a key component for patients to learn how to manage their diabetes. This study followed the group of newly diagnosed diabetes patients in 2020-2021, to determine how many were successful in completing the new patient education program. In this group, 77% of participants completed the program, surpassing the goal of 75%. This education allows patients to be successful in lowering their HBA1c and making healthier lifestyle choices.

Increasing Access to the COVID-19 Vaccine

When the COVID-19 vaccine became available in December 2020, it was in high demand. In January, we were able to provide 471 vaccines to our patients. This was not enough to meet the demand, and we set a goal of 1,000 vaccines per month. In order to better serve our patients we improved our process for vaccination by establishing vaccine clinic events. This allowed us to accommodate 150 – 200 participants in a four-hour period. We typically held two of these clinics each week, allowing us to meet the need for patients and community members. It was a team effort, with staff from medical, development, and medical records departments. We opened the clinics to non-patients, to reach out to the community to improve the “community immunity”. Our efforts allowed us to surpass our goal, with 1,158 vaccines in February, 2,207 in March, and 1,457 in April.