Diabetes: A Platform for Chronic Disease

Now that you have a sense for the global burden and need for chronic care programs and treatment, it will be easy to ground yourself in Project HOPE’s chronic disease approach and programs. Managing a chronic disease (and as important, keeping people well) requires a very different model than traditional acute care. It demands different products and services in addition to varied physician skill-sets to develop a personal trust and empower patients to want to make changes in their lives.

Some of these chronic vs. acute differences include¹:

• Clinical, Education & Communication skills
• Patient – centered care
• Peer support
• Lifestyle modifications
• Community mobilization

Project HOPE’s approach to public health is “helping people help themselves” or empowering patients to have the will and capability to help advocate for and manage their own conditions. This involves strengthening the local infrastructure, increasing capacity for quantity and quality of care, and educating patients when and how to seek help. Their approach for chronic disease is specific to each country’s environment and needs. This requires an initial public health assessment to identify the greatest needs to generate the largest impact for the program investments. Project HOPE’s current diabetes programs (Type 1 and 2) can be seen below – each of which uniquely addresses the gaps and environment in the communities it addresses².

Working with providers (hospitals, clinics, physicians, nurses, public health workers), health officials (local and national government), corporations (pharma, med device, technology), health management and insurance organizations, educational systems (elementary through medical universities), existing non-profit organizations, and (last but not least) patients is essential to providing a universal understanding of systemic needs and opportunities across the patient care path. I will spend my time “in the field” interviewing, observing, and working directly with these stakeholders to recommend the best “fit” program from their portfolio (including new ideas and best practices across communities).

Project HOPE’s approach works to build healthcare capacity FIRST – training health professionals to increase the scale and quality of care in the community. This is a truly sustainable approach in alignment with their goal to help communities help themselves (i.e. teaching the communities how to fish rather than feeding them for a period of time). Not only is this valuable from an investment standpoint, but it is also more successful. Outcomes in development programs³ show that initiatives have a much higher rate of success when local leadership empowers the community. When capacity is scalable, patient awareness (top-down and bottom-up) efforts help drive prevention and early diagnosis (here’s where the real ROI is) in addition to compliance efforts to manage patients’ care across the continuum.

Project HOPE’s strategy will expand from a strong foothold in diabetes to other disease states such as cardiovascular disease and cancer (usually in this order). Not it’s time to see how theory plays out in the field – and the journey begins!

Sources:

1. Project HOPE Global Diabetes Portfolio (presentation) – Courtney Guthreau
2. PROJECT HOPE, UNITEDHEALTH GROUP LAUNCH CONNECTED CARE TELEHEATH PROGRAM TO EXPAND HEALTH CARE ACCESS IN NEW MEXICO
3. Positive Deviance / Hearth: A Resource Guide for Sustainably Rehabilitating Malnourished Children – The CORE Group