Today, the American Diabetes Association® (ADA) announced the formation of the Diabetes Primary Care Alliance (the Alliance), made possible through a new partnership between the ADA and the DARTNet Institute. The Alliance is a growing national network of almost 2,000 primary care practices focused on improving health outcomes of people with diabetes.
The Alliance will promote the adoption of evidence-based standards of care in diabetes in clinical practice and will work in concert with the educational and policy initiatives of the ADA’s Primary Care Council. The Alliance will engage nationally recognized primary care thought leaders and leading academic and health care institutions as early adopters of evidence-based improvements. The goal is to accelerate the integration of the latest advances in diabetes care by primary care practices across the country.
Building on DARTNet’s practice-based experience, a key component of the new Alliance will be the creation of the ADA DARTNet Institute Alliance for Diabetes, a consortium of practices that will facilitate the use of aggregate health data to enhance evidence-based diabetes care delivery and improve outcomes in participating practices.
“The ADA’s Diabetes Primary Care Alliance will provide a robust health information source that empowers primary care health care professionals and researchers to transform what we know into what we do,” said Dr. Kevin Peterson, the ADA’s vice president of primary care.
The mission of the Alliance is to support joint research, quality improvement activities, and educational initiatives that increase the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based standards of care for people with diabetes. To that end, the ADA has awarded the DARTNet Institute a project grant to expand work in primary care and quality improvement initiatives. Since over 90% of type 2 diabetes care is provided in primary care settings, the initiatives will focus primarily on the effective prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes and comorbidities, including cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, eye health, weight management, and peripheral vascular disease.
“With the ADA’s expertise and focus and DARTNet’s reach into primary care practices, both directly and through our partners, this collaboration is poised to push the boundaries of advanced, high-touch, high-tech care to improve the lives of people with diabetes.” said Dr. Wilson Pace, DARTNet’s chief medical and technology officer.
The Alliance includes practices in under-resourced communities and racially and ethnically diverse communities — communities often disproportionately impacted by diabetes. The initial work will focus on enhancing community health care teams by engaging community health workers and practice facilitators to improve diabetes-related heart and kidney outcomes.
The Alliance members will join with the practices and health care systems from other ADA primary care quality improvement initiatives to improve education, promote evidence-based clinical practice, decrease the clinical burden on staff, and introduce strategies to improve primary diabetes care.
“This collaboration will allow the ADA to improve care for people with diabetes across the country and translate our collective knowledge into action,” said Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, the ADA’s chief scientific and medical officer.
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About the American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is the nation’s leading voluntary health organization fighting to bend the curve on the diabetes epidemic and help people living with diabetes thrive. For 83 years, the ADA has driven discovery and research to treat, manage, and prevent diabetes while working relentlessly for a cure. Through advocacy, program development, and education we aim to improve the quality of life for the 136 million Americans living with diabetes or prediabetes. Diabetes has brought us together. What we do next will make us Connected for Life®. To learn more or to get involved, visit us at diabetes.org or call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383). Join the fight with us on Facebook (American Diabetes Association), Spanish Facebook (Asociación Americana de la Diabetes), LinkedIn (American Diabetes Association), Twitter (@AmDiabetesAssn), and Instagram (@AmDiabetesAssn).
About the DARTNet Institute
The DARTNet Institute is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization representing more than 2,000 practices and providing support for 12 practice-based research networks (PBRNs), 25 academic medical centers, and 85 healthcare organizations in the transformation of multi-sourced data into standardized, actionable health information that supports patient care, quality improvement, patient safety, health improvement, and collaborative learning and research. Founded in 2007 with funding from The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the DARTNet Institute supports quality improvement initiatives and research across the nation impacting over 5 million lives and maintaining data on approximately 12.5 million patient visits. DARTNet is a certified Patient Safety Organization. DARTNet’s tools provide new opportunities for tracking success and monitoring quality improvement activities to promote sustainable measures toward enhancing the health care offered to patients with diabetes.
