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The DOC Makes an Impact at AADE

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve attended AADE 2014 in Orlando, but there is still plenty that I wanted to write about. You may have heard (or read I guess) from others about the session that involved some of the DOC’s own. The session titled, “The DOC Rx: The Role of Social Media in Managing Type 1 & 2 Diabetes” included Jennifer Block, Jill Weissberg-Benchell, Kerri Sparling, Bennet Dunlap and was moderated by Jeff Hitchcock who was a last minute fill-in for Manny Hernandez who could not make the trip.

I was super excited about this session for a long time because any time the DOC can connect with educators is an opportunity to share the amazing benefits of the DOC. As I talked about in my last post, there always seems to be some sort of hesitance from educators, and other healthcare professionals about being involved in social media. Primarily because of HIPAA, there are issues that keep educators offline and also keep from referring their patients to the internet.

hipaa-logoAs we know, just because you read it on the internet means it must be true (that is sarcasm, relax).

The session was opened up by Jeff Hitchcock which included a short introduction of the panel and some information about Friends for Life and CWD and then led to questions asked to the panel. One of the first questions posed was to Kerri about what the most challenging and emotional aspects of living with diabetes is. Summarizing Kerri’s response, there is no reward for doing all of the right stuff, therefore burnout can come from doing these things every single day. An answer like this is seen a lot from people in the DOC especially during DSMA, and if educators were just trolling at least, it could help them better understand the emotional impact of diabetes when their patients come visit them during their 1-2 trips to the office a year.

I personally felt that Dr. Jen Block being on the panel was the best part of the entire session. She is not only a person living with type 1 diabetes, but also a CDE who sees patients. She mentioned several times that she uses the DOC all the time in her practice and that educators as a whole need to expand their vision of the DOC because it is an incredible resource. This point was one of the best made. There is such a defense mechanism up from the HCP community about online information and their patients taking advice from people and then the HCP being held responsible for being the one referring them to the DOC.

The discussion must be made with the HCP and the patient. The discussion must be clear. Do not change any regimes, medications, or any other doctor’s orders without consulting with a physician. Dr. Jen Block made reference to an infamous blog post from Kerri about putting her Dexcom in a glass overnight in order to better hear the alerts from the Dexcom. This is a great tip from the DOC that an educator may never know of and wouldn’t be able to recommend to their patients unless they were involved with reading posts from the DOC.

Questions from the Floor

Once the room was opened up for discussion a question about the number of face to face support groups seems to be getting smaller and smaller and the educator was curious if the DOC was interfering and partly responsible for this. Dr. Block responded that there is room for both. I have personally gone to face to face support groups and they just aren’t for me. Some people may prefer the face to face meeting time, but that poses a problem in itself, the time. The convenience of the DOC to be able to do things on your own time is one of the reasons why face to face support groups may be drawing fewer numbers. It is definitely not the only reason, but is a viable one.

Jeff Hitchcock added to the answer that the DOC provides for an opportunity for real time support. You have a problem or a question right now, you ask it on Twitter or Facebook and you have 10 answers before you an even pick up the phone to leave a message for your educator. The DOC also allows the opportunity to meet face to face as well. I have met more people from the DOC face to face then I have in going to local meet ups organized by a local diabetes organization or my educator’s office.

Have you figured out by now that I am a huge fan of Jen Block? She had mentioned that she uses the discussions and questions from the DOC and turns them into answers for her patients as a CDE. How awesome is that? Taking issues that are brought up in the DOC and then proactively discussing them with their patients can make a patient feel great because they may have concerns that they are embarrassed to bring up or just forgot to ask during their appointment.

Finally, an educator came to the mic and asked about type 2 blogs and resources because it seems that all the discussions were based on type 1. If you have made it this far down into the post, please comment below with any and all type 2 diabetes blogs and resources you know of.

To wrap up the session which seemed to go by way to fast, Bennet and Kerri shared some great information about the Spare a Rose campaign and CGM in the Cloud #wearenotwaiting.

I will be writing one more post about the AADE which is just a summary of links to a lot of big announcements from the industry.

2 thoughts to “The DOC Makes an Impact at AADE”

  1. Thanks for the recap, Chris. Sounds like a great DOC-involved conference, even more than in the past – awesome to see AADE and educators embracing this peer-support more. Interesting topic, on the face-to-face and how DOC may be playing a part in decreases. I’d add to what Jeff said, about the DOC allowing for more real-time connections with people. But I’d also note that D-Meetups in real life can compliment what happens online. I would also note that I think more and more educators, endos and clinics have just been phasing out in-person support groups because they don’t have the time or resources to devote to those like they used to. And when it comes to patient or volunteer-led groups, there’s a lot of turnover because it doesn’t have a high return especially when some can’t make it out. So, they often don’t last long… further adding to the conversation about how the DOC is a benefit. Think it’s personal, like you said, and whatever fits someone’s world the best and the time they have. Thanks for writing this.

    1. Thanks for your comment and thoughts Mike. I totally agree with a lot of support groups fading because either the CDE’s or volunteers can’t keep up with something when only a few people are coming, it’s tough to keep the motivation to leave your family for an hour at night to sit with 1-2 others.

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