Self-management program to get national distribution
Kate Lorig
In an effort to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of self-management programs for chronic health problems, the National Council on Aging is spearheading a three-year pilot project that will disseminate the Stanford Self-Management Diabetes Program beginning in November.
The pilot project will provide 2,500 high-risk diabetes patients who are members of WellPoint Health Plans free access to community-based workshops in three major cities — St. Louis, Indianapolis and Atlanta — and online nationwide.
The project is a partnership between the National Council on Aging, the YMCA, OASIS Institute, WellPoint and Stanford University Medical Center.
The diabetes self-management workshop involves weekly meetings for patients over a six-week period in community settings, such as churches, community centers, libraries and hospitals. People with type-2 diabetes attend the program in groups of 12 to 16. Workshops are run by two trained leaders, one or both of whom are peer leaders with diabetes themselves.
Kate Lorig, DrPH, professor emeritus and director of Stanford's Patient Education Research Center, will run the evaluation component of the project, collecting and evaluating data.
"Our goal is to show health-care insurers that this is cost-effective," said Jay Greenberg, senior vice president for social enterprise at the National Council on Aging. "If adults with diabetes stay on top of their blood glucose levels, then they don't become high risk. It's the difference for some people between leading a healthy life and winding up blind, with end-stage renal disease or losing limbs."
The National Council on Aging and Stanford are collaborating to make available nationwide an entire suite of online self-management programs that improve health outcomes and quality of life for older adults in a cost-effective way. The suite of programs was developed under Lorig's leadership.
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