Sunday 13th September 2015

EASD Non-commercial Symposium, Stockholm

Hodgkin Hall 14.30 – 17.00

Panel discussion – topics and questions

The rates of children and young people with type 1 diabetes are increasing at a steady rate. The diabetes care work force remains constant in terms of numbers and available resources. Furthermore, due to the new technologies the diabetes therapy becomes more complex.

The pivotal role of the diabetes educators has been recognised Europe-wide. Tremendous differences however still exist across the countries in the training, qualifications and responsibilities of diabetes educators and as a result in the delivery of diabetes care. We observe a dramatic variety of patients’ diabetes-related health outcomes. The diversity across countries in terms of the structure in diabetes care, lacking resources in many European countries, undefined qualifications for diabetes educators pose substantial challenges when planning the unified European diabetes care. Furthermore, the fast growing technology to manage diabetes needs to be considered when defining and accrediting a diabetes educator role Europe-wide.

The expertise in Europe is available; however the spread of experts and resources across countries is not even. We need multidisciplinary teams on a European level to deal with these challenges. Sharing expertise across countries would help to elevate the diversity and to reach the international guidelines (i.e. ISPAD, IDF) for diabetes management.

The European platform to share and gain resources is a great chance for many countries to develop and provide high quality diabetes care for children and young people with diabetes.

In the panel discussion we want to look for ways to share diabetes expertise across Europe.We will focus on unified Europe-wide diabetes education considering the challenges and opportunities.

First we aim to present the current picture of diabetes education in Europe based on SWEET and Leonardo da Vinci, Transfer of Innovation data referring to the international guideline for structured education (i.e. IDF, ISPAD). Second we aim to discuss current challenges and opportunities of diabetes management on the European level and consider how to unify the diversity by reference to the example of the UK. Third, we aim to address the time perspective and development of an idea into an established system addressing the experience of diabetes care in Germany in the last 35 years. Fourth, we will explore the opportunities to accredit the diabetes educator training Europe-wide. Fifth, we will look for interest groups within the diabetes community which may benefit from the Europe-wide diabetes education training (e.g. FEND; ISPAD members). Sixth, we will be discussing the opportunities for mobility across countries considering the ECVET credit points.

Speaker / Topics and questions
Prof. Dr. Thomas Danne / ISPAD guidelines
Centres of reference SWEET
What is the role of the diabetes educator in SWEET?
What are the new tasks for diabetes educators?
Future of diabetes? New technologies?
Katharina Heininger / Smaller start into certified structured training programme
At the beginning little structure, things happened by chance
Today – structured trainings programmes delivered for health care professionals delivered in 7 centres across Germany.
What is it today like in diabetes education?
The development of diabetes educators in Germany – positive perspective.
Dr. Melanie Kershaw / “Cooperation instead of competition”
How to deal/manage the diversity within diabetes service across Europe?
Addressing the British example (MSc ADE) to give ideas for Europe on how to unify diabetes care to enable mobility, quality care throughout Europe.
How to work out a common line of action? How to use/share resources efficiently?
Joao Raposo
ESDG/EASD / “As a member of a patient association, and member of a university”
When speaking of “Patient Education”, do we all (in Europe) mean the same?
Can we incorporate the concept of “patient education” in the formal training at univeristies?
How do we recognize and incorporate patient/families needs in the Health Care Providers training (and practice)?…
Anne-Marie Felton FEND / As a speaker of FEND :
how do you evaluate the relevance of EU-wide diabetes educator course?
What kind of support can you provide for the European training course/transfer of expertise
…
What could you add to the project? *
What could be of interests to the members of FEND?

*Short summary of our project and the blueprint need to be provided alongside the panel questions!