Strategic Plan Goal #1: Improve Access to Diabetes Care and Education: A Strategic Focus for 2024 and Beyond
Dec 19, 2023, 11:00 AM
By Jane K. Dickinson, RN, PhD, CDCES, ADCES 2024 President
Are you familiar with the ADCES® mission? Just in case you are not, here it is:
Mission: Empower diabetes care and education specialists to expand the horizons of innovative education, management and support.
And what about our organization’s vision?
Vision: Optimal health and quality of life for persons with, affected by or at risk for diabetes and chronic conditions.
And while we’re at it, you should also be aware that our organizational values are excellence, collaboration and leadership.
When we think about achieving that vision, through that mission, we need a strategic plan that supports both of them. The first goal in our new strategic plan is to Improve Access to Diabetes Care and Education. In fact, the only possible way to ensure that all people with diabetes receive the care they need to live well with diabetes is to make diabetes care and education widely available.
Each of us can only work so much and see so many people, and therefore we need to grow the number of diabetes care and education specialists (DCESs) across the board. We need DCESs in urban and rural areas, and we need DCESs to have access to the resources available at ADCES. Jan Kavookjian, 2022 ADCES president, wrote about our organizational efforts to grow and diversify membership. In addition to that, our staff and volunteer advocacy team is working hard to make sure diabetes care and education (specifically, DSMES) is available to those who need it. Lucille Hughes, 2023 ADCES president recently wrote a blog about how advocacy work is focusing on reimbursement for DCESs and programs ADCES offers to expand your business acumen.
Another valuable resource at ADCES is the ADCES Foundation. The board has been discussing the future of the foundation and how we can most effectively grow and distribute its funds. The foundation supports scholarship grants so ADCES members can attend the Annual Conference each August. It also sends ADCES members to the Friends for Life conference each summer.
The ADCES Foundation also provides financial support for diabetes care and education research. Without evidence showing the value of what we do, it is extremely challenging to increase access to our services for those who need it. There are multiple research grants available through the foundation, the largest of which is the research fellowship. This award, which is co-funded by CBDCE, funds a researcher who is examining some aspect of diabetes care and education. The research fellow has one year to conduct their research and then presents their findings at the Annual Conference. Be sure to look for and attend this session in August in New Orleans!
ADCES collaborates with our industry partners who help us provide education resources, including danatech®, the ADCES Annual Conference, and the annual Diabetes Technology Conference, as well as the awards ADCES gives out each year.
Oh, and another thing! The amazing members of ADCES who serve on various committees, evaluate content, write practice papers, plan programs and so much more are also getting the word out about our specialty and our value! In fact, we are currently working to enhance our collection of resources around this important topic of value.
All of these efforts come together to support our mission of helping DCESs do the work we are meant to do and do it well. As a Board of Directors and as an organization, we are looking forward to a strong future for diabetes care and education, because we are committed to excellence in all that we do. The updated strategic plan is a tangible way to see how we plan to accomplish that with the ultimate goal of improving life for all people with diabetes.