SHC and Diabetes

Diabetes is a large and growing public health emergency, especially among people of color and the poor who face serious co-morbidities such as heart and kidney disease, limited access and/or connection to primary care, poor adherence, and as a result, repeated episodes of costly hospitalization. NMQF’s Center for Sustainable Health Care Quality and Equity (SHC) works with partners to address the needs of this population and achieve the triple aim of good care, outcomes, and controlled costs.

SHC has launched the Diabetes Working Group, as a public-private partnership to promote patient-centered and sustainable health care and outcomes for diverse diabetes populations in most need. Building off of NMQF’s state-of-the-art health geographic information system (GIS) along with clinical chart and survey data geo-mapping capabilities and the SHC Quality Improvement Education – QIE – approach, initiatives include:

• Development and updating of the interactive Diabetes Index which maps the toll of diabetes across the United States
• Development of communications around the toll of diabetes in the U.S. and recommended strategies for improvement
• The Brooklyn and New Orleans Collaborative for Sustainable Healthy Communities (Diabetes Collaborative for short), a community-based QIE initiative in which primary care team and community champions from hard-hit communities are engaged and trained to promote population health through the implementation of practice improvement and community change efforts to promote patient-centered care